Lost Crossings: A Contemplative Look at Western North Carolina's Historic Swinging Footbridges

By Katey Schultz

This ebook contains 12 brief, contemplative essays and numerous photographs documenting North Carolina's most historic swinging footbridges. Mitchell and Yancey Counties are home to 13 of the state's 23 remaining footbridges, including the oldest in the state. Lost Crossings is the first book to offer comprehensive footbridge info. Read stories, view the map, and learn about this local feature.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Katey Schultz
• Release date: Apr 29, 2012
• ISBN: 9781476100838

Katey Schultz

Katey Schultz grew up in Portland, OR and is most recently from Burnsville, NC. In 2008, she graduated from Pacific University with an MFA in Creative Writing. Her fiction has received numerous awards, including the Linda Flowers Literary Prize awarded by the North Carolina Humanities Council. She is author of the chapbook Lost Crossings, editor of TRACHODON Magazine, Advisory Board Member for Memoir (and) Journal, and editor of two fiction anthologies published by Main Street Rag. Currently, Katey is travelling from 2010-2012 on writing fellowships through arts organizations across the country. Learn more at www.kateyschultz.com.

Book preview

Lost Crossings

A Contemplative Look at Western North Carolina’s

Historic Swinging Footbridges

Essays by Katey Schultz

with Shane Darwent

Copyright 2012 Katey Schultz

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ISBN 9781476282282

Our Sponsors:

Great Meadows, Inc.

The Design Gallery

Alessa E. Leming

Supporters:

Barking Spider Pottery, Daniel Barron, Mark Buss, Don Carew, Vaughn & Sandy Grisham, Jo Ann Heydron, Carl & Jean Johnson, Scott Klein, Jean McLaughlin, Barbara Middleton, Patrick Phillips, Scott Poling, Susan Thurow, Susan Wasserman, Sawrie & Chuck Wuest.

Friends:

Arthur Morgan School, Mark & Kate Boyd, James Byrd, Buzz Coren, Linda D. Edwards, David & Saskia Etheridge, Wayne & Susan Lasuen, Dean D. Leming DDS, Debbie Littledeer, Donna Mellen, Wesley Middleton, Bill & Lisa Schultz, Terry’s Kwik Lube, and Bill Weeks.

Table of Contents

Introduction

Interview with Corrine Canipe

Footbridge Hunting

Sounds from the Past

Lenny and the Flood of ’77

Getting Our Feet in the Door

Talking Business

Checking the Traps

Nobody’s Home

Looking for the Light

Getting Lost

Lost Crossings

Map

About the Artists

Introduction

The idea came slowly at first, like snowmelt filtering down a mountain stream. I’d been told the swinging footbridges are maintained by North Carolina’s Department of Transportation (DOT). I also learned that Mitchell and Yancey Counties are home to 13 of the state’s 23 remaining footbridges. Nowadays, many of these footbridges lead to a dead end: private property, a cemetery, or an old train depot.

I made a pilgrimage to the Honeycutt Bridge (223W) and it was there, where Bad Creek flows into Rock Creek, that this notion of Lost Crossings came to fruition. Anchored between Highway 226 and a steep hillside, the space begged for interpretation. I could almost hear the stories being told, memories from a way of life nearly forgotten.

Yet it wasn’t enough to imagine these stories. I stood above a confluence of pure mountain waters and understood it would be necessary to trace the story of each footbridge back to its source. Bad Creek had come a long way down the mountain. The families and buildings around these footbridges had come a long way, too.

We began our fieldwork Fall 2008, crossing every footbridge in Mitchell and Yancey Counties. The DOT sent spreadsheets and maps. The Bakersville Library and Historical Society proved helpful. I put together a list of primary sources and started scheduling interviews. We asked around at the post office, the convenience center, the lumberyard, and the coffee shop. Everyone, it seemed, had a story or two about the swinging footbridges.

We completed our fieldwork by wintertime. Our mountain counties had their coldest November in 50 years, and we worked away at