Bridge No: 4270086600100

Asset ID: 146

County: Spartanburg

Bridge Name:

Facility Carried: S-42-866 (Mulberry Lane)

Feature Intersected: Holston 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: 45 feet

Structure Width: 21.5 feet

Setting: The bridge carries a 2-lane road over a stream in a sparsely developed, rural setting on the east side of Campobello. The road is on a bypassed loop of old US 176, the Old Asheville Road. The roadway retains the geometric design of first-generation highway improvements.Another bridge is located to the south (see 4270086600200).The road has changed names several times.It was formerly known as Blue Ridge Street.

The 1 span, 45'-long reinforced concrete deck arch bridge has incised-panel concrete parapets with end posts, and it is supported on concrete abutments with wingwalls.It appears to be complete.

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.That 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.The oldest extant county example was placed in 1920 over Lawsons Fork Creek (422001760900).The bridge plaque identifies that 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 on the Campobello area arch bridges (just the scar where it was originally attached) built in 1922 or 1923 on bypassed loops of state highways, they are attributed to Luten Bridge Company as well.This bridge was placed in 1922.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 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 as well (see 4270040700100).None of Spartanburg County’s early bridge records survive.