Historic Covered Bridge Nearby

My parents, who live in Roswell, are some of the few people I know who enjoy a nice drive out in the country as much as I do. And since we all live in the far north end of Fulton County, "the country" isn't all that far away. Fall weather, in particular, inspires us to just drive around and see what's happening with the trees and so forth, so we took a nice drive last Sunday.

I had been recently looking at some old Georgia Life magazines from the late 1970's and one of the issues had pictures of 10 of the remaining covered wooden bridges in Georgia. I saw that one of the bridges was in Forsyth County, the "Pooles's Mill Covered Bridge." So, I went to the Forsyth County government website and saw that there is still a Poole's Mill Covered Bridge and in fact, Forsyth County maintains a little park around it.

So, last Sunday my folks and I drove up the Birmingham Highway, over to the County Line Road; crossed Ga. 20 and went north on the Heardsville Road straight up to Heardsville Circle which is where you will find the little "Poole's Mill Park" to the right. 

The bridge looks exactly the same as it did in the picture from that old Georgia Life magazine. This old covered bridge was built around 1901 and spans the Settingdown (or Settendown) Creek. To quote the historical marker sign at the location, this covered bridge was built by Bud Gentry, "in the Town lattice design...the web of planks crosscrossing at 45-60 degree angles are fastened with wooden pegs, or trunnels, at each intersection." If you walk across the bridge there is a very picturesque area where the Settendown Creek snakes to the north and west and falls downward over shoals and boulders.

We were really happy to discover this place exists is so near to Milton and Alpharetta! This is a lovely place to visit for simple scenery and a bit of history. And the drive northward through the Milton and Cumming countryside is relaxing on a Sunday afternoon in autumn.