Covered wooden bridges have long captivated the American imagination. More than quaint relics of horse and buggy days, these remarkable achievements in civil engineering helped forge the physical and economic growth of the United States for over a century. By the 1870s, more than 10,000 covered bridges spanned the American landscape. Today, roughly 750 remain, with the majority located in Pennsylvania, Ohio, Vermont, Indiana, New Hampshire, and Oregon.

Horace King was a successful bridge architect and builder in west Georgia, northern Alabama and northeast Georgia in the period between the 1830s and 1870s. He was born a slave on September 8, 1807 in Chesterfield District, South Carolina.  King's ancestry was a mix of African, European, and Catawba Indian. Taught to read and write at an early age, he had become a proficient carpenter and mechanic by his teenage years. Records indicate King spent his first 23 years near his birthplace, with his first introduction to bridge construction in 1824. In 1824, bridge architect Ithiel Town came to Cheraw, South Carolina to assist in the construction of a bridge over the Pee Dee River. While it is unknown whether King assisted in the construction of this bridge or its replacement span built in 1828, Town's lattice truss design used in both Pee Dee bridges became a hallmark of King's future work. When King's master died around 1830, King was sold to John Godwin, a contractor who also worked on the Pee Dee Bridge. King may have been related to the family of Godwin's wife, Ann Wright. In 1832, Godwin received a contract to construct a 560-foot bridge across the Chattahoochee River from Columbus, Georgia to Girard, Alabama, today Phenix City. Godwin an King moved from Columbus to Girard in 1833. The pair began many other construction projects, including house building. They built Godwin’s house first, then King’s. King and Godwin built nearly every early house in Girard.

The two then went on to build the courthouses of Muscogee County, Georgia and Russell County, Alabama and bridges in West Point, Georgia, Eufaula, Alabama and Florence, Georgia. They built a replacement for their Columbus City Bridge between Columbus and Girard in 1841, because the original was destroyed by a flood in 1838. Godwin issued five-year warranties on his bridges because of his confidence in King’s high quality work.

The Columbus City Bridge was the first known bridge to be built by King, who likely planned the construction of the bridge and managed the slave laborers who built the span. King worked for his master, John Godwin who owned a successful construction business. It is thought by scholars that Godwin sent King to Oberlin College in Ohio, the first college in the United States to admit African-American students, in the mid-1830s. Although King was a slave, Godwin treated him as a valued employee and eventually gave him considerable influence over his business. Horace King supervised many of Godwin's business activities including the management of construction sites.

In 1837, during a time of financial difficulty, Godwin transferred ownership of King to his wife and her uncle, William Carney Wright of Montgomery, Alabama. This may have been done to protect King from being taken and sold by Godwin's creditors. King was allowed to marry Frances Gould Thomas, a free woman of color, in April 1839. It was extremely uncommon for slave owners to allow such marriages, since Frances' free status meant that their children would all be born free.

The couple had four boys and one girl. The King children eventually joined their father at working on various construction projects. In addition to building bridges, King constructed homes and government buildings for Godwin's construction company.

By 1840, King was being publicly acknowledged as being a co-builder along with Godwin, an uncommon honor for a slave. King's stature had surpassed that of his master by the early 1840s. He worked independently as architect and superintendent of major bridge projects in Columbus, Mississippi and Wetumpka, Alabama. While working on the Chattahoochee River covered bridge in Eufaula, Alabama, King met Tuscaloosa attorney and entrepreneur Robert Jemison, Jr., who soon began using King on a number of different projects in Lowndes County, Mississippi, including the 420-foot Columbus, Mississippi Bridge. Jemison would remain King's friend and associate for the rest of his life. King bridged the Tallapoosa River at Tallassee, Alabama in 1845. Later that same year he built three small bridges for Jemison near Steens, Mississippi, where the latter owned several mills.

Despite his enslavement, King was allowed a significant income from his work and, in 1846, used some of his earnings to purchase his freedom from the Godwin family and Wright. However, under Alabama law of the time, a freed slave was only allowed to remain in the state for a year after being liberated. Jemison, who served in the Alabama State Senate, arranged for the state legislature to pass a special law giving King his freedom and exempting him from the manumission law. In 1852, King used this freedom to purchase land near his former master. When Godwin died in 1859, King had a monument erected over his grave.

In 1849, the Alabama State Capitol burned, and King was hired to construct the framework of the new capitol building, as well as design and build the twin spiral entry staircases. King used his knowledge of bridge building to cantilever the stairs' support beams so that the staircases appeared to float, without any central support.

Around 1855, King formed a partnership with two other men to construct a bridge, known as Moore's Bridge, over the Chattahoochee between Newnan and Carrollton, Georgia, near Whitesburg. Instead of collecting a fee for his work, King took stock instead, gaining a one-third interest in the bridge. King moved his wife and children to the bridge about 1858, although he continued to commute between it and their other home in Alabama. Frances King and their children collected the bridge tolls and farmed at Moore's Bridge. The earnings from Moore's Bridge allowed King a steady income, though he continued to design and construct major bridge projects through the remainder of the 1850s, including a major bridge in Milledgeville, Georgia and a second Chattahoochee crossing in Columbus, Georgia.

During the Civil War, King continued to work on construction projects usually for the Confederacy including a building for the Confederate navy near Columbus, Georgia. Confederate officials also forced King to block several waterways to prevent Union access to strategic points in Georgia and Alabama.

Many of King’s bridges were destroyed by Union troops including Moore’s Bridge in July 1864. When Union soldiers attacked Columbus, Georgia in April 1865, they burnt all of King’s bridges in that city, including the one he had finished less than two years earlier.

The destruction of the war led to new opportunities for King. Within six months after the war's end, King and a partner had constructed a 32,000-square-foot cotton warehouse in Columbus and King had, for the third time rebuilt the original Columbus City Bridge. Over the next three years, King would construct three more bridges across the Chattahoochee in Columbus, a major bridge in West Point, Georgia, two large factories, and the Lee County, Alabama courthouse.

In October 1864, his wife died leaving King a widower with five surviving children to care for. He remarried, immediately after the Civil War ended to Sarah Jane Jones McManus. 

When the Reconstruction Acts were implemented in 1867, King became a registrar for voters in Russell County, Alabama. Later that year, he attempted to establish a colony of freedmen in Georgia. While that plan was unsuccessful, King went on to be elected to the Alabama House of Representatives in 1868 as a Republican representing Russell County. King, though, busy in his construction business in Columbus, did not take his seat until over a year later, in November 1869. King remained a reluctant legislator, voting only 78% of the time and proposing only three bills, none of which became law. Despite his inaction, King was reelected in 1870, proposing no bills in the 1870-71 session and only five in the 1871-72 session, one of which, a prohibition on the sale of alcohol in Hurtsboro, Alabama, became law. King did not seek reelection in 1872.

After King left the Alabama Legislature in 1872 he moved with his family to LaGrange, Georgia. While in LaGrange, King continued building bridges, but also expanded to include other construction projects, specifically businesses and schools. By the mid-1870s, King had begun to pass on his bridge construction activities to his five children, who formed the King Brothers Bridge Company. King's health began failing in the 1880s, and he died on May 28, 1885 in LaGrange.

King received flattering obituaries in each of Georgia's major newspapers, a rarity for African-Americans in the 1880s South. King was posthumously inducted into the Alabama Engineers Hall of Fame at the University of Alabama in 1989. The award was accepted on his behalf by his great grandson, Horace H. King, Jr.

For more than a century the achievements of King have been well known in the Lower Chattahoochee River Valley. Local writers and chambers of commerce proudly proclaim their Horace King bridges or buildings even when there is little or no real historical evidence to verify many of the claims.

In 2004 the Horace King Overlook, a deck attached to the historic Bridge House at RiverFront Park in Albany, Georgia, was dedicated in King's honor. The overlook's structure includes a miniature replica of one of King's covered bridges. King is remembered for both his engineering skill and for his character.