Covered Bridge Festival

Illustration of covered bridge with red text on yellow background.

The Parke County Covered Bridge Festival is a fall festival which takes place in nine communities in Parke County, Indiana, United States. It celebrates the county's 31 covered bridges and is attended by more than 2 million people each year. It begins on the 2nd Friday in October and lasts 10 days. The festival began in 1957, when a group of local women decided to hold a three-day festival to accommodate the many interested tourists looking for information about the bridges. Now the festival is thriving and puts Mansfield on the map 10 days of the year. The first festival was rather small and occurred only in Rockville.

Rockville is a town in Adams Township, Parke County, in the U.S. state of Indiana. It is known as "The Covered Bridge Capital of the World". Rockville was laid out in 1824, three years after the county was founded, and became the county seat. In 1825, its population was between 500 and 600. The residents voted to incorporate the town in July 1854. The Rockville Chautauqua Pavilion and Rockville Historic District are listed on the National Register of Historic Places.