Michigan has only a few covered bridges that you can drive your vehicle across. One of those bridges is the historic Fallasburg Bridge a few miles north of Lowell near Grand Rapids. To get to the bridge from Lowell you need to go through Bridge Park that sits along the Flat River. Doc Brown from Back To The Future built a time machine, but if you ever want to travel back in time all you have to do is drive across the Fallasburg Bridge. Just be sure not to go 88 miles per hour as the sign on the bridge states “$5 fine for riding or driving on this bridge faster than a walk. ”
John and Silas Fallas came to the area from New York in 1837 and built a sawmill and chair factory. The Flat River and hardwood forests that lined it made an excellent location for lumbering. They built a grist mill for grinding grains, which powered by a waterwheel turned by the current of the river. The biggest challenge they faced was crossing the river. In 1840 the brothers built the first bridge to cross the river. This bridge was destroyed by the ice flows and rising water in the spring. The next two bridges survived a little while longer and the town began to prosper. With the sawmill, grist mill and bridge the town thrived. The main road from Grand Rapids to Detroit came through the town that had been named after the brothers. The town of Fallasburg began to decline after the railroad decided the train would pass through the nearby town of Lowell, bypassing the once bustling little community. The covered bridge was built in 1871 in hopes that it would make traveling to the town easier but the iron horse was far superior to the real ones that pulled wagons. After the dam was built in Lowell the river no longer flowed like it used to, and the once mighty river no longer had the power to run the mill. The town basically disappeared from the map after that.
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