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Bridging Time: The O & W Bridge

This article appeared in the Johnson City Press Kingsport Times News; Saturday, October 19, 2024 Contributor was Calvin Sneed.

Continued from February 19, 2026 issue of SCN.

By Calvin Sneed
Community Continuator

The original O&W Bridge was built between 1847 and 1900 in an unknown location, but in 1913, the railroad owner hired the Nashville Bridge Company to build a bridge across the gap. A pre-existing bridge was located, disassembled and brought to the only logical crossing in the gorge, just above Mile Marker 72 of the Big South Fork of the Cumberland River, a narrow location known locally as “Jake’s Hole.” That’s the bridge we see today.
According to application paperwork for the National Register of Historic Places it’s a rare Whipple truss ‘bridge made of wrought iron. The Whipple truss design was patented by Squire Whipple in 1847 and was considered a stronger version of the more common Pratt truss, because the diagonal steel bars cross two panels instead of one. From a distance, it just looks like a whirlwind of steel rods from top to bottom.
Often described as working like suspenders on a pair of pants, the structure distributes the weight along the length of the bridge as the object travels across. Weight is pulled back from the center of the bridge to either side because of 45-degree supports mounted at both bridge entrances.
The O&W Bridge is 200 feet long from shore to shore, also rare for a Whipple bridge. Very few were built longer than 150 feet. The bridge truss rests on a concrete pillar on the east shore, and a huge. sandstone boulder on the west side. To say that rock is as big as a small house is an understatement. It’s apparent that the bridge company chose the location simply for the convenience of using that behemoth as a pier.
“To me that showed a lot of pioneer spirit,” said David Jeffers Scott County. The builders looked at the rock and said “well it probably weighs 10 times more than a locomotive or coal lumber car’ and they figured well it’s not going anywhere’ the self-reliance those planners had was incredible.”
“The O&W bridge was essential to the economy of a rural rugged part of Scott County Fentress County and in fact the entire region,” said Jordan Hughett, Scott County historian “It was the way for people to travel, to go to work, to go to school, to go to church to, connect the mountain community with the opportunities the outside world had to offer. No time was the more evident than with probably one of the most famous people at the time who crossed it.”
In its heyday, the O&W bridge ferried logs, coal and passengers, but no cargo as important as soldiers going off to defend our country during World War I. One of those soldiers was a tall gangly 29 year old from Pall Mall Tennessee, who after being drafted in 1917 boarded the Oneida and Western Railroad in Jamestown, headed east, crossed the O&W bridge and took the Cincinnati Southern Railroad to a point over to Knoxville and on down to Fort Gordon Georgia.

After the war when Sergeant Alvin C. York returned home a highly decorated soldier, he once again crossed the O&W Bridge to get to Jamestown in his ancestral home in Fentress county’s Pall Mall community, where he devoted the rest of his life to developing educational opportunities for his neighbors in upper Cumberlands.
Having outlived its use fullness, the O&W Railroad was abandoned in the late 1940’s, the tracks removed in 1954, leaving the railbed to provide a connection to the homes in the forest along the route to Jamestown. That changed in 1974 with the formation of the Big South Fork National River and Recreation Area, under the auspices of Natural Park Services.
The road leading to the bridge was closed to motor vehicle traffic, although Scott County government always claimed ownership of the bridge itself. An agreement was reached to leave the road open along the Ridge to North White Oak Creek two miles past the bridge.
Eyebrows were raised when a Scott County Commission resolution in February 2023 proposed using state money to demolish the O & W bridge and replace it with the newer, more modern bridge. That action was met with swift outrage from the community not only was Jeffers on the Commission at the time, he was also chairman of the O& W Bridge committee.
“There had been a proposal to get money to fix up the road to the bridge, but tearing the bridge down was never an option,” he said. “It’s part of Scott county’s history and it belongs to Scott County government. Our primary goal right now is to get the bridge listed on the National Register of Historic Places, but there’s no rush to that.”
That confidence was committed commented in place shortly after that. When the Scott County Commission voted unanimously, 13 – 0 to have the bridge listed on the National Register. The application for disengagement contained a lot of historic information that formed the basis for this article.
“The history of the bridge cannot be overstated,” said Jeffers. “The type of bridge it is, where it is located, how it defines the historical period of the area and what we can still learn from this genealogy of that era, all leads off the preservation efforts for the O&W Bridge.
“It’s the only link between our history and the community history of those loggers, those miners, those mountain folk, who settled this land,” said Hughett. “Our civilized history began there and it’s important to hang on to memories of that past.’’
Today, part of the preservation process now involves access to the O&W Bridge. The O&W Road sits on what used to be the old railroad bed, and it utilizes four former railroad bridges that cross Piney Creek down into the Big South Fork gorge. They provide vehicular access to the bridge.
Jeffers said TDOT has made a decision that will close one of those approach bridges leading to the O&W Big South Fork crossing, saying that bridge reportedly failed an inspection. Closing any of the bridges leaves no vehicle access to the O&W Bridge, which would now require at least a six-mile hike. Jeffers says county administrators will be considering all of their options to protect vehicle access to one of the area’s local and regional tourist attractions within the Big South Fork National River and Recreation Area.
At this writing, there is only one other Whipple style bridge in Tennessee, near Oak Ridge. But this bridge, the O&W Bridge is itself artwork, part of the fabric of its area. Sheer tapestry, drawn against the mosaic of the Cumberland Mountains and its Big South Fork. A river runs through it, and a bridge crosses over it. It is the tie sthat binds the area.