Historic and celebrated Honey Run Covered Bridge, built 132 years ago, now just a ruin.
BUTTE CANYON, Butte County — When a volunteer firefighter told Robert Catalano there was nothing left of the celebrated Honey Run Covered Bridge near Chico, Catalano broke down.
A friend sent Catalano, 65, a photo of what was left of the bridge, nearly knocking the words out of him. Where once the historic 238-foot wooden bridge stood were charred wooden beams, rippled sheet metal, and red steel beams protruding from concrete amid orange clouds of smoke.
Only a plaque commemorating the bridge survived the Camp Fire.
Since it was built 132 years ago, the covered bridge — the only three-span truss bridge of its kind in the United States — had been cherished and protected. It was a monument to the Gold Rush era, a treasure that was listed on the National Register of Historic Places. It had its own association to look after it: the Honey Run Covered Bridge Association. Catalano was its president.
“My voice cracked. I had tears in my eyes,” Catalano said, recalling the moment on Friday when he learned that the Camp Fire had destroyed the bridge. “It used to be a thing of pride in our neighborhood and now it’s gone.”
Catalano has been president of the Honey Run Covered Bridge Association for three years, and lives roughly 3 miles upstream from the Butte County landmark in the Quail Run neighborhood.
“We are mourning. It’s like losing a child,” said Catalano, who also lost his home in the fire. “This is hard for everybody, not just for me.”
The bridge stretched over the bubbling Butte Creek and connected Butte Creek Canyon and Paradise Ridge. Over the decades, the bridge has been the backdrop for weddings and celebration-of-life ceremonies, and even the setting for community movie nights. Residents of the Butte Canyon area strolled across the footbridge, people dipped their toes in the creek below on balmy summer days, and visitors lounged along the creek near the bridge, taking in the canyon.
But the canyon is barely discernible among the thick, choking smoke. The trees and brush are blackened or destroyed, the creek is muddied from debris, and the bridge is gone.
The bridge was constructed in 1886 for just $4,300 by the American Bridge and Building Co. of San Francisco after gold was discovered in Butte County, connecting the canyon and Paradise Ridge.
The bridge, originally reinforced in 1886 with steel cables and built to sustain about 1,500 pounds, opened on Jan. 3, 1887.
In 1965, a panel truck that lost control crashed into the bridge, forcing officials to rebuild it with Ponderosa pine beams and iron rods with Pratt-style trusses.
It had been one of only 11 covered bridges still standing in California.
Officials with the Honey Run Covered Bridge Association, which formed in 1965 to restore the bridge after the truck destroyed its eastern span and to preserve its historic value, posted a photo of the destroyed bridge on its website with a statement for residents affected by the blaze.
“We as a community and association are devastated by the destruction of the Camp Fire in Butte Canyon and the surrounding areas,” the statement read. “We... hope you and your loved ones are safe through these difficult times.”
Dozens of people mourned the historic bridge’s destruction on social media, many sharing memories and photos of visits to the bridge.
Catalano said bridge association officials were planning on building a visitors’ center and office on the park land — which they privately own — where visitors would learn about the rich history of the bridge and the former mining community. They planned to sell T-shirts and other souvenirs.
“Now everything on Honey Run Road is gone,” Catalano said. “Everything.”
He said that he and about 40 other residents of the canyon met at a Chico bar on Friday night to make sense of the fire that ravaged their community. Some residents are planning on rebuilding, while others won’t return — too heartbroken to start again.
“We don’t know what to do yet, but we’ll go on, like people do,” he said. “We’ll be like phoenixes rising out of the ashes. We gotta keep living.”