At 100, the Ashley River Memorial Bridge still carries U.S. 17

Charleston Mayor William Cogswell and S.C. Transportation Secretary Justin Powell will mark 100 years of the Ashley River Memorial Bridge at 11 a.m. Monday, Nov. 9, at Brittlebank Park, the city announced Nov. 5.

The bridge opened to traffic in January 1926 and was dedicated that spring as a memorial to South Carolinians who died in World War I, according to the city. The ceremony falls two days before Veterans Day.

The span cost $1.25 million, The Post and Courier reported in May, citing The News and Courier. It replaced a swing bridge on a slightly upstream alignment, according to the S.C. Department of Transportation.

The bridge is 1,733 feet long, and its main span is a double-leaf bascule, with two 101-foot leaves that lift for boats, according to SCDOT’s historic bridge inventory. The department calls it one of the most architectonic and significant bridges the state highway department built in the 1920s, noting the Mediterranean Revival-style houses at the corners of the drawbridge.

It is one of four drawbridges still operating in South Carolina, The Post and Courier reported.

The bridge first carried two-way traffic. In 1961, the parallel T. Allen Legare Bridge opened to take commuters from West Ashley into downtown, the newspaper reported, and the 1926 span now carries U.S. 17 southbound, SCDOT records show. SCDOT counts about 79,000 vehicles a day on the Legare Bridge but has no official count for the memorial bridge, according to The Post and Courier.

The structure has needed work over the century. A ship, the Fort Fetterman, hit the raised drawbridge on Oct. 5, 1955, cutting off what was then the only way across the Ashley River. A temporary fix reopened the bridge after two weeks, and the permanent repair required another closure, the newspaper reported. In 1988, SCDOT strengthened the foundations because of settlement and scour, adding prestressed concrete piles beside the original piers, according to the department.

A third crossing is on the way. The city’s Ashley River Crossing, a bicycle and pedestrian bridge linking the West Ashley Greenway to Brittlebank Park, is under construction and “on schedule and within budget,” according to the city. The Post and Courier reported in May that it is estimated at nearly $100 million and expected to be finished in 2027.