This weekend, I decided to explore one of the great historical features of the Central Park area. My mini-adventure happened on the way home from shopping in Asheboro and it was worth the trip. I saw the sign for the Pisgah Covered Bridge and I took the exit, eager to explore.

History

Pisgah Covered Bridge is a covered bridge that spans the west fork of the Little River in Randolph County, North Carolina. It is the only accessible covered bridge in North Carolina, and one of only two (originally built on public roads) in existence in the state (the other being Bunker Hill covered bridge in Catawba County, North Carolina)

The bridge was built by 1911 by J. J. Welch at a cost of $40. It is a one-lane bridge, 51 feet in length. The bridge eventually became obsolete as the number of cars increased and it could not handle the increased traffic. It was eventually replaced by a bypass in the 1950s, but it remains a tourist attraction. The bridge is currently to the south of Pisgah Covered Bridge Road, just west of the community of Pisgah. The road now crosses a 2-lane concrete bridge nearby, built in the 1950s.

Since 1998, the North Carolina Zoo Society has collaborated with the North Carolina Department of Transportation, the Piedmont Land Conservancy, and the LandTrust for Central North Carolina to maintain and refurbish the bridge. The bridge was washed away by a flood on August 9, 2003, but was rebuilt the next year. The restoration was able to salvage about 90 percent of the materials from the original structure. The bridge is assumed originally to have had a shingle roof; however, it was replaced with tin in the 1930s. In restoration, the roof was returned to shingle.

Please enjoy the pictures that I took while exploring this great piece of history. I will be returning in the spring and summer to take advantage of the picnic area and the walking trails.

Join Denton and Dentonians as they celebrate the men and women that have served our country on Sunday, November 9th. A celebration of Veterans and Veteran's Day will take place in Harrison Park to included food and music. At Harrison Park there is also a WWII display. Festivities will begin at 2PM. For more information, please contact Barbara Hogan, 336-859-4269.

Tom Magnuson, a NC Humanities fellow and Davidson County historian with a wealth of knowledge about trading paths in the area, will be speaking on Saturday, November 8th at the Denton Town Hall at 2pm. Magnuson hopes to provide Denton residents with some insight into how the role that their community played in the trade of goods in the early days. For more information about this event, please contact Barbara Hogan, 336-859-4269.

More info on Tom Magnuson and his work, from the NC Humanities Speakers Bureau Catalog:
Trading paths were a system of centuries-old trails and river crossings linking the Chesapeake Bay region and Catawba, Cherokee and other American Indian towns in the Carolinas and Georgia. During England's first contact with Native Americans between 1585 and 1750, a substantial population of Indians, Europeans, and Africans in the southeast blended cultures and populations to produce many of the characteristics we now call southern. Quakers, former indentured servants and runaway slaves, whole families outlawed in Virginia, and opportunists of all stripes found a place in Carolina. The trading paths served to join these cultures, and areas surrounding the paths were meccas of settlement for both American Indians and Europeans. Later roads were constructed along these same routes. Thus, it is highly probable that much of our history and most of our stories start on a road, are at least in part about a road, and depend on a road. As a result, finding old trading paths is synonymous with finding the material remainders of our earliest history which remains largely a mystery. In this program, Tom Magnuson describes the process and the importance of finding, recording, and preserving these early roads.