County commissioners called local landowners in 1894 to build and maintain a bridge across Lyles Creek, and in response they hired Andy J. Ramsour, keeper of Horse Ford covered bridge over the Catawba River at Hickory. In 1895, Ramsour, with Eli Kale, George Moller, Cain Bost, and Electious Connor, built the bridge, probably using a design Ramsour found in a popular bridge-building book. The bridge was originally an open span and was covered five years later. It stood on Island Ford Road, a former Indian Trail that remained important in the state's western development and during the colonial period served as a route for transporting British prisoners of war after the 1781 Battle of Cowpens, when Morgan's army with hundreds of prisoners, horses, and wagons stretched more than two miles approaching the Island Ford. By the middle of the 20th century, the road had become the major thoroughfare US Hwy 64/70. The name came from the nearby Bunker Hill Farm, operated by descendants of the Staford and Lawrence families since the early 1800s, and the bridge also stood near the site of an early post office of the same name. Built of oak with trunnels, or wooden pins, instead of nails, the bridge originally had a wooden-shingled roof that was replaced with tin in 1921. A major restoration in 1994 by Arnold Graton and Sons of New Hampshire stabilized the structure. At least 10 covered bridges existed in Catawba County during the 19th century, but many were destroyed in the floods of 1916 and 1940, and others were phased out during the state legislature's Good Rods Movement of the 1920s. Today only two covered bridges remain in North Carolina, in Catawba and Randolph Counties.