by Skylar Laird, SC Daily Gazette
September 9, 2025
After 205 years, Poinsett Bridge in South Carolina’s Upstate is getting a facelift.
The historic bridge, once part of State Road extending from Charleston to North Carolina, will close between Sept. 29 and March 31 as preservationists repair its lime mortar, replace missing stones and install a guardrail, according to the state Department of Natural Resources.
It is touted by the agency as the oldest surviving bridge in the Southeast.
The entire 400-acre preserve surrounding the gothic-style bridge, located in Greenville County, will close over the next six months to give crews space to work, the department said in a news release.
Built in 1820, the bridge was among three in an 11-mile segment of road running through the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains — providing access to Asheville, North Carolina.
The stretch called Saluda Mountain Road cost about $60,000 to build. It was part of an ambitious state plan to create commerce routes to Charleston to compete with Georgia’s growing Port of Savannah, according to an agency website.
Two of the three bridges now lie beneath the Saluda Reservoir. Only Poinsett Bridge remains standing, according to a 2004 report on the bridge’s history.
Preservation work
All that time has taken its toll, said Meg Gaillard, an archaeologist for the conservation arm of the natural resource agency. Erosion over the years allowed water to seep through the arch, “making it vulnerable to possible structural failure,” Gaillard said in an email.
Engineers and archaeologists have been eyeing the bridge for repairs since 2021, Gaillard said.
“This work is designed to ensure people will enjoy the bridge for many years to come,” she said.
When visitors return to the Poinsett Bridge Heritage Preserve on April 1, the bridge will look a little different. Archaeologists must clean and replace the mortar in the joints of the bridge, so the whole structure will appear newer, Gaillard said.
Since the preservation work is meant to last at least another 200 years, moss and lichen that live on the bridge’s surface will have plenty of time to regrow, softening the stone and giving it that old look, she said.
History
A keystone set in the Poinsett Bridge reads “1820,” the year of its completion.
Two years before starting construction, legislators spent $1 million on a four-year economic development effort to provide three commerce routes to Charleston. The Saluda Mountain Road was part of the route that extended from Charleston through the capital of Columbia and on to Greenville and western North Carolina.
They put the newly established Board of Public Works in charge of the initiative, which centered around building a road running from the mountains to the coastline, according to the historical report.
The bridge is named for Joel Poinsett, a former legislator and the first director of the new board who is famous for introducing the poinsettia flower to the country.
The origins of the bridge’s design, however, are more of an unknown.
No written schematics for the bridge or the road remain, making it impossible to determine for certain who made the plans.
It is the prolific American architect Robert Mills, best known for designing the Washington Monument, who often receives the credit for drawing up the bridge’s design.
Mills became the lead architect for the Board of Public Works a month after the road’s completion, according to the state’s natural resources agency.
The 19th century architect’s distinctive combination of Palladian, Georgian and Greek Revival styles remain on view across South Carolina, including at the Robert Mills House in Columbia and the Fireproof Building in Charleston.
The question remains, though, whether the Poinsett Bridge should count among those. Some historians point to illustrations Mills made of all three bridges on the Upstate portion of the road as an indication that he was the brain behind it.
Disrepair
People traveled Saluda Mountain Road for 135 years.
However, tolls charged to pay for its maintenance until at least the Civil War meant farmers tended to avoid it. Still, it was popular among affluent Lowcountry families taking the most direct route to second homes in the mountains to avoid the “sickly season” when malaria was common, according to the state Department of Natural Resources.
Eventually, the combination of a railroad system, the invention and popularity of cars that replaced horse-drawn wagons and carriages, and the creation of better routes made the road obsolete.
It saw renewed use following the construction of a nearby Boy Scout camp in the 1920s, according to the report on the bridge’s history.
But use of the bridge as a thoroughfare ended in 1955, when Greenville County rerouted the road, according to the agency’s website on the bridge.
For years, it stood unused on private property.
In 1970, it was added to the National Register of Historic Places. At the time, a Greenville garden club was working to restore the bridge and clear part of the original roadbed to create a parking lot, according to an application submitted to the National Park Service.
Then, in the early 2000s, the South Carolina Heritage Trust, a division of the Department of Natural Resources, stepped in. The state agency bought the bridge, along with about 120 acres, in 2003 to create a nature preserve.
Last year, the department added another 280 acres to the preserve, nearly tripling its size. Along with the bridge itself, the property is home to several rare plant species, migrating songbirds and five species of bats, according to the natural resources department.
SC Daily Gazette is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. SC Daily Gazette maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Seanna Adcox for questions: info@scdailygazette.com.
Be the first to comment