Bridge No: 4270040700100

Asset ID: 145

County: Spartanburg

Bridge Name:

Facility Carried: S-42-407 (Burnt Factory Road)

Feature Intersected: Hacker Creek

Year Built: 1922

Year Reconstructed:

Main Structure Type: Deck arch

Design:

Main Material: Reinforced Concrete

Railing Type: Incised paneled concrete parapets

Number of Main Spans: 1

Number of Approach Spans:

Approach Type:

Structure Length: 31 feet

Structure Width: 20.3 feet

Setting: The bridge carries a 2 lane road over a stream in a wooded rural setting.

The 1 span, 31'-long reinforced concrete deck arch bridge has plain spandrel walls and is finished with a concrete deck with an asphalt overlay and incised-panel concrete parapets with end posts.It is supported on concrete abutments with wingwalls.There is no plaque or inscription identifying the year built.

Because of its position in the northwest corner of the state, Spartanburg County has historically been crisscrossed by important trails, roads, railroads, and after 1917, state highways. In the years between the Civil War and World War I, the county prospered as a railroad center, a textile mill center, a transshipment center for fruit, and a tourist destination. Consequently, when the Federal Aid Road Act of 1916 provided matching funds for the construction of permanent roads and bridges, the county was well-positioned to participate.Until 1924, South Carolina required that county road commission funds, not state funds, be used for the federal 50%-50% match.The policy precluded most of the state’s counties beyond Greenville, Richland and Spartanburg from participating in the program.Spartanburg County approved a 1.25 million dollar road and bridge construction bond in 1917 and used the money to improve routes included as part of the original 1917 state highway system.At least four deck arch bridges were built by the county in the Campobello vicinity using federal matching funds with the earliest extant example being the 1920 Lawsons Fork Creek bridge (422001760900).It was designed and built by the Luten Bridge Company of Knoxville. The firm opened its Knoxville office about 1914, and they marketed their patented reinforced concrete bridge designs to counties throughout the region from that location.Although no maker plaque survives, this bridge is attributed to Luten Bridge Company as well. The 18'- to 20' wide travelway, unimproved shoulders, blunt bridge ends, and tight curves are all typical of the early state highway design.This 1922 bridge is historically and technologically significant for its technological significance as one of the earliest complete deck arch bridges in the state and for its association with the original federal-state-county partnership program for improving roads and bridges prior to 1924.Spartanburg County built deck arch bridges on non-state routes, like this one. None of Spartanburg County’s early bridge records survive.