COTTAGE GROVE —

This southern Willamette Valley town of 10,000 people — a 20-minute drive south of Eugene — prides itself as “The Covered Bridge Capital of Oregon.”

Indeed, there are more covered bridges in Lane County (20) than in any other county west of the Mississippi River, and that includes Iowa’s fabled Madison County.

There’s no better way to experience the bridges than on a bicycle ride, and Cottage Grove has that covered. Its Covered Bridges Scenic Bikeway, beginning and ending in the heart of the town’s historic downtown, is a 37.8-mile loop. It incorporates the paved Row River Trail, a 15.6-mile route that follows a former rail corridor along the northeastern shore of Dorena Lake.

In all, the two sections of the bikeway run through or past six bridges. The two most prominent, perhaps, cross the Coast Fork of the Willamette River near downtown Cottage Grove, on either side of a narrow swinging bridge temporarily closed for safety reasons.

Centennial Bridge is modern and miniature; volunteers built it in 1987 — on the foundation of a bridge that was razed in the 1950s — to celebrate the city’s 100th birthday. Materials came from two other bridges demolished in the late 1970s. Only 14 feet high and 10 feet wide, the 84-foot-long bridge extends through a park and is open to bicycles and pedestrians.

The Chambers Bridge, listed on the National Register of Historic Places, is the last remaining covered railroad bridge west of the Mississippi River. Lumberman J.E. Chambers had it built in 1925 to transport timber to his sawmill, which burned down just seven years later. It was restored in handsome fashion in 2011, again for bikes and walkers.

East of town, the one-lane Mosby Creek Bridge (built in 1920, restored in 1990) is the only one of the bridges that still allows vehicular traffic. The oldest bridge in Lane County has ribbon openings on the roof line of each side. Also on Mosby Creek is Stewart Bridge (built in 1930, restored in 1996), just off Garoutte Road, well known locally for its great swimming hole.

The Currin Bridge (built in 1925, restored in 1995) is easily identifiable by its red-painted sides, framing white portals. It replaced an earlier, 1883 bridge over the Row (rhymes with cow) River. South of Dorena Lake on the Row, the Dorena Bridge (built in 1949, restored in 1996) once linked the roads that surround the lake; now it’s a popular venue for weddings.

On two wheels

Photographer Barb Gonzalez and I brought our bicycles over the hill from Bend last week to ride a portion of the Cottage Grove Scenic Bikeway. We didn’t get as far as we thought we might — my rear tire went flat about 9 miles into the ride — but we had experienced enough of the Row River National Recreation Trail to recognize its many merits.

Before we set out, Cottage Grove’s longtime city manager, Richard Meyers, himself a bicycling enthusiast, assured me: “Anybody can ride this trail.” Beyond a doubt, it is one of the gentlest and best maintained “rails-to-trails” projects I’ve ever seen.

Beginning at Trailhead Park, where State Highway 99 crosses Main Street, the Row River Trail follows an urban corridor along Mosby Creek Road into suburban meadows. These open into farmlands between the Mosby Creek and Currin covered bridges. The trail next rises almost imperceptibly through Weyerhaeuser timber lands for a little over a mile to a lookout above the Dorena Dam, built in 1949 by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers for flood control in the upper Willamette River basin.

The 5-mile lakeshore trail reveals one beautiful view after another. Wherever the yellow blossoms of Scotch broom break through the Douglas fir forest, fishing boats may be seen puttering across Dorena’s blue waters. Somewhere in the center of the lake, near Harms Park, the same waters immerse the remnants of the 19th-century village of Dorena; it was evacuated and moved south during construction of the dam in the 1940s.

Everywhere between 8 and 10 feet wide, the banked trail has a smooth asphalt surface marked with yellow paint wherever rising roots or temperature changes have caused bumps. Except where conifers have recently dropped needles, it appears to be regularly swept — all the way to Bake Stewart Park, at its south end near the Dorena Bridge.

Riders who want to complete the entire 37-mile loop of the Covered Bridges Scenic Bikeway may return to Cottage Grove via the southern shore of Dorena Lake, along Shore View Drive and Garoutte Road. This route is substantially hillier, but a well-marked bike path alerts motorist to share the road with bicyclists.

The corridor upon which the trail was built was once the short-line Oregon, Pacific & Eastern Railway (OP&E). Once owned by the Bohemia Mining Company, and used to haul gold and timber, passengers and supplies between the hamlet of Culp Creek and Cottage Grove, it ran from 1904 until the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) bought the track in 1994 to settle a timber debt default.

The city of Cottage Grove acquired the westernmost 3 miles, as far as the Mosby Creek Bridge, and the multiple-use Row River Trail opened in 1998.

Film locations

Before the railway closed — a smaller version of the OP&E now serves the Winston Wildlife Safari park near Roseburg — it served as a set for several notable movies. In Buster Keaton’s 1926 silent action-comedy classic, “The General,” Keaton single-handedly rescued his beloved locomotive from thieves and ran it through enemy lines.

In the 1973’s “Emperor of the North Pole,” later released on DVD as “Emperor of the North,” train-hopping hobo Lee Marvin confronts vicious conductor Ernest Borgnine in a Depression-era drama. In parts of 1986’s “Stand by Me,” based on a Stephen King story, four boyhood chums, including River Phoenix and Wil Wheaton, are filmed on the track and one of its trestles.

While Keaton’s face greets visitors to Historic Downtown Cottage Grove as a mural on the east wall of the old Cottage Grove Hotel, the best-known movie filmed in this town had nothing to do with the railroad. This was “Animal House,” the 1978 John Belushi vehicle about fraternity-house hi-jinks.

While much of the movie was shot in Eugene, the climactic parade was staged in Cottage Grove. Plans are underway to recreate it for next summer’s 40th anniversary of “Animal House.” Stars like Tim Matheson and Kevin Bacon have been invited to return. Already, the town’s 1931 National Guard armory is undergoing renovation; the sets of Otter’s (Tom Hulce’s) bedroom and Dean Wormer’s (John Vernon’s) office will be preserved.

Cottage Grove dates its history from 1848, when Applegate Trail pioneers began homesteading on what had been Kalapuya Indian lands. The discovery of gold in the 1860s in the Bohemia Mountain area, 30 miles southeast, sparked rapid growth. That rich mining era is remembered today at downtown’s Bohemia Gold Mining Museum, which exhibits historic mining equipment among its detailed models and displays in the restored Boots and Sandals Square Dance Barn.

Early Cottage Grove was dubbed “Slab Town” for the wooden planks that sat atop its muddy lanes. There’s no depiction of that era in the 21 downtown murals. But there are portrayals of the early 1900s in a Main Street scene by artist Connie Huston (2007), at Fifth and Main streets, and a Fourth of July parade by artist Howard Tharpe (2005), on Sixth Street near Jefferson Avenue.

The biggest parade in modern Cottage Grove is the Grand Miners Parade, the highlight of the four-day Bohemia Mining Days celebration in mid-July. A replica of the DeathMobile of “Animal House” fame is a notable participant.

An unrelated attraction, less than a mile from downtown, are the gardens at the venerable Village Green Resort. Fourteen acres of gardens with a variety of themes, from tropical to xeriscape, children’s to a Christian labyrinth, are open every day of the year.

Waterfalls and wine

Beyond Cottage Grove, the waterfalls of Umpqua National Forest, near the Row River headwaters in the foothills of the Cascade Range, are worth visits in their own right. There are seven notable falls within 32 miles.

With limited time, we chose a short hike into Spirit Falls. The drive there took us up Layng Creek Road (Forest Road 17) about 28 miles east of Cottage Grove (and only about 10 miles south of State Highway 58 near Oakridge).

A broad, well-maintained trail, only moderately difficult, led us through a paradisiacal woodland of bracken and sword ferns, huckleberry and salmonberry shrubs, cedars and firs. The path switch-backed into the gully of Alex Creek, but we didn’t need to seek out the waterfall; we heard its rush long before we saw it.

And it was a beauty. Spirit Falls gushed over moss-covered bedrock in a fan pattern that made it appear much larger than its 60-foot height. Spring snowmelt swelled the torrent. Scores of small wildflowers were nurtured by its spray, and a single picnic table (presumably, it was assembled on site) invited longer stays. We enjoyed about an hour before moving on.

Two other waterfalls, 105-foot Pinard Falls and 125-foot Moon Falls, are within 4 miles of Spirit Falls. On the more southerly Brice Creek Road (Forest Road 2470), are four others, the most impressive of which are said to be Upper and Lower Trestle Creek Falls. None of these waterfalls requires a hike of more than 2½ miles.

Cottage Grove recently has begun to position itself as a gateway to Oregon wine country. Indeed, the town is within 45 minutes’ drive of 13 wineries of the southern Willamette Valley and northern Umpqua Valley wine regions.

The only one with a Cottage Grove address is the Saginaw Vineyard, just off Interstate 5 north of town. A small cottage winery, it doesn’t get the respect of some of its neighbors.

Oregon’s largest producing winery, for instance, is King Estate, which is nearer to Cottage Grove than its Eugene address would suggest. On a hillside in the Lorane Valley, this winery produces more than 350,000 cases of wines annually, mainly pinot gris and pinot noir. And its 1,033 planted acres make it the largest biodynamic winery in the United States.

Nearer to Eugene are the Iris, Sweet Cheeks and Silvan Ridge wineries. The Chateau Lorane Winery is southwest and the southernmost in the Willamette Valley region.

South of Cottage Grove, Brandborg, River’s Edge, Bradley and Anindor wineries are in the Elkton AVA west of Drain. And nearer to Oakland are MarshAnne Landing, Misty Oaks Vineyard and the Triple Oak Wine Vault.

To the best of my knowledge, none of them is making a Covered Bridge blend.

— John Gottberg Anderson can be reached at janderson@bendbulletin.com.

There are more covered bridges in Lane County (20) than in any other county west of the Mississippi River, and that includes Iowa’s fabled Madison County.There’s no better way to experience the bridges than on a bicycle ride, and Cottage Grove has that covered. Its Covered Bridges Scenic Bikeway, beginning and ending in the heart of the town’s historic downtown, is a 37.8-mile loop.

If you go

INFORMATION

Cottage Grove Area Chamber of Commerce. 700 E. Gibbs Ave., Cottage Grove; visitcottagegrove.com, 541-942-2411.

Travel Lane County. 754 Olive St., Eugene; EugeneCascadesCoast.org, 541-484-5307, 800-547-5445.

LODGING

Best Western Cottage Grove Inn. 1601 Gateway Blvd., Cottage Grove; bestwestern.com, 541-942-1000. Rates from $119

Quality Inn Cottage Grove. 845 Gateway Blvd., Cottage Grove; qualityinncottagegrove.com, 541-942-9747. Rates from $89

Village Green Resort & Gardens. 725 Row River Road Cottage Grove; villagegreenresortandgardens.com, 541-942-2491, 800-966-6490. (Includes Seasons at the Green restaurant; three meals; moderate.) Rates from $99

DINING

Axe & Fiddle Public House. 657 E. Main St., Cottage Grove; axeandfiddle.com, 541-942-5942. Dinner nightly. Moderate

The Brew Station and Coast Fork Feed. 106 S. Sixth St., Cottage Grove; coastforkfeed.com, 541-942-8770. Lunch and dinner every day. Budget

Buster’s Main Street Cafe. 811 E. Main St., Cottage Grove; bustersmainstreetcafe.com, 541-942-8363. Breakfast and lunch every day. Budget to moderate

Creswell Bakery. 182 S. Second St., Creswell; creswellbakery.com, 541-895-5885. Breakfast and lunch Tuesday to Saturday. Budget

Jack Sprat’s. 510 E. Main St., Cottage Grove; jackspratsbrats.com, 541-942-8408. Three meals every day. Budget to moderate

ATTRACTIONS

Bohemia Gold Mining Museum. 308 S. 10th St., Cottage Grove; bohemiagoldminingmuseum.com, 541-942-5022. Open 1 to 4 p.m. Thursday to Saturday.

King Estate Winery. 80854 Territorial Highway, Eugene; kingestate.com, 541-942-9874.

Rainy Peak Bicycles. 533 E. Main St., Cottage Grove; 541-942-8712.

Saginaw Vineyard. 80247 Delight Valley School Road, Cottage Grove; saginawvineyard.com, 541-942-1364.

Expenses for two

Round trip drive, Bend to Cottage Grove (272 miles @ $2.55/gallon): $27.74

Dinner, Axe & Fiddle: $40

Lodging (two nights), Village Green Resort & Gardens: $193

Breakfast, Buster’s Main Street Cafe: $34

Lunch, Jack Sprat’s: $33

Dinner, Seasons at the Green: $61

Breakfast, Creswell Bakery: $25.01

TOTAL: $413.75