Protection sought for iconic Lady’s Island Bridge, which reminds us of ‘where we are’
The middle section of the Richard V. Woods Memorial Bridge over the Beaufort River begins to swivel, leaving a gap in Highway 21. Bells clang. Barriers come down. Traffic backs up.
Then a single sailboat with a 40-foot mast — the cause of the traffic jam — cruises through, unfettered. It’s heading south, maybe to the Florida Keys or the Caribbean. The opening and closing of the bridge is a spectacle witnessed daily in Beaufort — from waiting motorists in cars to tourists visiting Waterfront Park. Bridge tenders like Nathan Atkinson-McClellan, who parted the bridge like the Red Sea, make it happen.
“My pleasure, captain,” Atkinson-McClellan replies after the Endeavor skipper thanks him and notes he’ll be back in the spring.
To be sure, twisting this historic bridge out of shape to make way for boat traffic can be a headache for people trying to cross the Beaufort River in vehicles. In fact, Mayor Stephen Murray recently announced that he plans to look into the bridge’s opening schedule and its effect on traffic.
But the landmark is as ingrained in the Lowcountry landscape as palmetto trees and marsh grass. And the city and Historic Beaufort Foundation want it placed on the National Register of Historic Places.
The listing, they say, would protect the 63-year-old “beautiful structure” that keeps traffic flowing on the Atlantic Intracoastal Waterway — even if it is a pain sometimes for busy motorists.
“It’s iconic,” HBF’s Cynthia Jenkins says, adding it is “part of the way of life” in Beaufort.
Different from draw bridges
Unlike a drawbridge, which opens vertically, swing-span bridges turn on a central axis to provide clearance for boats and barges. A 200-foot section of the Lady’s Island Bridge, as the Woods Memorial Bridge is known locally, opens 90 degrees, turning on a track with wheels powered by a 20 hp motor.
While it’s turned sideways, boats can slip through.
From the late 18th century through the 1920s, swing bridges were the most popular type of moveable bridge, but there are only eight left in South Carolina.
The Lady’s Island swing span bridge, which opened in 1959, is the only one left in Beaufort County after a $77 million fixed span bridge replaced an 82-year-old swing-span bridge over the Harbor River, connecting St. Helena and Harbor islands, in July 2021.
The Lady’s Island bridge, one of two bridges connecting Beaufort and Port Royal with Lady’s Island and the Sea Islands, is sort of famous, having appeared in Hollywood films — Tom Hanks, in 1994’s “Forrest Gump, ran across it. And it’s become as much of a tourist attraction as the Civil War-era homes, churches and businesses in Beaufort’s historic district.
Locally, says Murray, the bridge and its viewshed are a “huge part” of what makes Beaufort a special place. Adding it to the National Register, he adds, would be a “big, big deal.”
“I think it’s an intentional way for us to remind ourselves of where we are,” Murray says of a federal listing.
Seeking national protection
HBF and the city of Beaufort teamed up to ask the National Register Board at the South Carolina Historic Preservation Office to approve a request to the National Park Service for placement on the National Register of Historic Places.
The board’s OK, which came in November, fast-tracked the process to have the bridge federally recognized, Jenkins says. The request now goes to the keeper of the National Register in Washington, D.C., for review. A decision, Jenkins says, is expected in a few months.
The bridge, which funnels cars to and from Beaufort’s busy historic downtown, already is part of the city’s 306-acre National Historic Landmark District. But Jenkins says individual recognition would bring additional protections and prestige if a new bridge or modifications to the Lady’s Island Bridge are proposed, requiring more review and public comment. A listing for the bridge also could protect the broader Historic Landmark District, Jenkins adds, because a new bridge or improvements could potentially impinge on properties in the district.
“It is an honest, simple design to help people cross the Beaufort River,” Jenkins says, “while at the same time encouraging boats to travel up and down the Intracoastal Waterway.”
The swing bridge, Jenkins adds, signifies the economic expansion of downtown Beaufort to the Sea Islands, and its scale jibes with Beaufort’s historic downtown.
Managing bridge ‘can be hectic’
Bridge tenders like Atkinson-McClellan are charged with opening and closing the bridge each day for sailboats, cabin cruises, shrimpers and other vessels. They work from a octagon-shaped hut on the side of its steel rails that includes a panel of buttons and levers that can make the bridge rotate and bring down barriers that block vehicular traffic during the process.
“If they request an opening,” says Robert Pinckney, operations manager for LB Services, which manages bridges for the South Carolina Department of Transportation, “we have to open it.”
Smaller boats do not need the bridge to open in order to pass under the bridge, which has a 30-foot clearance at high water when it’s closed.
Fall and spring are peak migration seasons, with boats leaving or arriving.
“Sometimes it can be hectic,” says Atkinson-McClellan, “especially during our peak season.”
By Nov. 28, the day the Endeavor passed through the bridge, 348 boats had already been recorded in November. “It’s been a busy month,” Atkinson-McClellan says.
In 2021, there were 1,716 openings for 2,044 boats, compared with 1,644 openings for 1,877 boats through Dec. 21 this year.
Atkinson-McClelland loves the job.
“The bridge,” he says, “does all the hard work.”
From his birds-eye perch, he can watch nesting osprey that return each year, and dolphins swimming in the Beaufort River. Once, a sea turtle poked its head out of the water before disappearing again.
Traffic jams a concern
In 2017, the Coast Guard, which regulates the Intracoastal Waterway, reduced the amount of time the bridge needs to open during peak vehicular traffic times in the morning and evening. That came after complaints from the city about impacts of opening the bridge on traffic.
Murray calls the bridge “a beautiful structure.” The views it provides of the Beaufort River and salt marshes, he says, “make up for any delays we have all experienced when we are driving to a meeting but get ‘caught’ by the bridge.”
However, Murray said at a City Council meeting earlier this month, with an apparent increase in traffic and transient boaters, getting on and off Lady’s Island by car has gotten more difficult, prompting complaints from residents and non-residents. In the coming months, Murray says, the city will lobby the “appropriate authorities” to do a new traffic analysis to see if adjustments can be made “making it more functional and efficient getting on and off the Sea Islands.”
Pinckney, the LB Services operations manager, says complaints about traffic are not uncommon. Once, a local attorney called him to say that he was late for church as a result of a traffic delay caused by a bridge opening. Pinckney was in church himself when he got the call.
The goal, Pinckney says, is always to keep bridge openings to less then 8-10 minutes for a single boat, but it may take longer if there are several boats crossing at one time.
“It’s a good bridge,” says Pinckney.
This story was originally published December 22, 2022 at 5:00 AM.
