Bridge No: 2370003800200

Asset ID: 790

County: Greenville

Bridge Name:

Facility Carried: S-23-38 (Old US 29)

Feature Intersected: Enoree River

Year Built: 1925

Year Reconstructed:

Main Structure Type: T Beam

Design:

Main Material: Reinforced concrete

Railing Type: Concrete balustrades with urn-shaped balusters

Number of Main Spans: 5

Number of Approach Spans: 0

Approach Type:

Structure Length: 215 feet

Structure Width: 32.6 feet

Setting: The bridge carries a 2-lane highway and sidewalks over a stream in a wooded setting.Beyond one quadrant is a deck girder-floorbeam railroad bridge on high steel tower bents.The road is a bypassed loop of the original route of US 29.

The 5 span, 215'-long T beam bridge has 43'-long span lengths.Each span is composed of 5 beams, and the fascia beams have haunched ends. The interior beams are straight. This is a typical 1920s T beam bridge detail. The beams are supported on concrete piers with stylized engaged columns on each end to create a bullnose shape.Sidewalks are on cantilevered deck sections that are supported on nicely detailed console brackets. The bridge is finished with concrete balustrades with vase-shaped balusters, and the articulated posts are paneled. Parapets are used over the U-shaped wingwalls at the approaches.

The state highway department standard design T beam bridge was built in 1925 as part of the initial improvements to US 29.It was designed by the bridge division under the leadership of state bridge engineer Capt. Joseph Barnwell.In addition to being one of the earliest complete examples of the standardized design that was a significant component of the state’s initial efforts to improve state highways, it also reflects Barnwell’s emphasis, really insistence, on aesthetics as an integral element of bridge design (Criterion C).Reinforced concrete T beam bridges were built by cities, some counties and the railroad in South Carolina prior to 1915.In addition to the adaptability of the bridge type to custom designs, it could easily be standardized for relatively short span lengths.The fledgling state highway commission issued a set of standard plans for T beam bridges in 1917 (Standard Nos. S-201 to 204).The earliest ones consisted of three or four lines of longitudinal beams.The standards were updated for wider roadways in the late 1920s. Standard design T beam bridges became ubiquitous throughout the state through the 1920s, and continued to be one of the Department’s workhorse standards through the 1950s.Yet as common and important a feature of the early state highway system as the T beam bridge was starting immediately after World War I, no unaltered pre-1922 examples are known to exist.In 2012, the oldest complete example of the historically important bridge type was the 1923 bridge over Coronaca Creek northeast of Greenwood in Greenwood County (2490003100100).The next oldest are two 1924 bridges on the original alignment of SR 7 between Calhoun Falls and Abbeville in Abbeville County (0170003200200 and 0170003200400). This 1925 bridge reflects the aesthetic treatment used for crossings in a more developed setting and is historically and technologically significant as a complete and refined example of the seminally important bridge type (Criterion C).