The Battle of Swift Island Bridge
In 1927 engineers and the U.S. Army spent four months trying to break a five-year-old concrete bridge between Stanly and Montgomery counties. They used water tanks, howitzers, bombers and finally explosives.
Drivers crossing Lake Tillery on N.C. 24/27/73 east of Albemarle pass over one of the most unusual construction sites in North Carolina history. Somewhere under the water beside the present bridge lie the remains of an earlier one: a three-arch concrete span that opened to a crowd of thousands on December 28, 1922, and was deliberately wrecked five years later.
The first Swift Island Bridge was not destroyed because it failed. It was destroyed because a new dam near Norwood was about to put it under a lake, and because engineers and soldiers saw a rare chance to test a full-size modern bridge until it broke. Local people came to call the episode the Battle of Swift Island Bridge. This account follows the official reports of the U.S. Bureau of Public Roads and the Army’s Field Artillery, and notes where later retellings differ from them.
A ferry, then a showpiece bridge
For most of the nineteenth century the road between Albemarle and Mount Gilead crossed the Pee Dee River by boat. The Swift Island Ferry worked the river several miles below Lowder’s Ferry, close to where N.C. 73 now meets N.C. 24/27 at the bridge, and it remained in use into the twentieth century, until the bridge replaced it. Until 1841 the river did not even divide two counties. Stanly was the part of Montgomery County lying west of the river, and local histories give the difficulty of getting across the water to court as one of the reasons the legislature divided them.
The automobile changed what the state expected of that crossing. In 1922 the North Carolina State Highway Commission built a reinforced concrete bridge at Swift Island as a Federal-aid project, part of a faster route between Charlotte and Raleigh. The Federal Highway Administration’s historical calendar records that thousands of people attended the opening on December 28, 1922.
The Bureau of Public Roads later described the structure precisely. It had three open-spandrel arch spans, each carried on two concrete ribs, with a clear span of 146 feet 3 inches and a rise of 28 feet 3 inches. Seven deck-girder approach spans of 42 feet 6 inches stood at each end. Stanly County historian Lewis Bramlett gives the total length as 1,068 feet and the cost as about $200,000; a figure of roughly $186,000 also appears in summaries drawn from Highway Commission reports. The roadway was 18 feet wide. A note on the back of a family photograph in the Stanly County Museum collection says that Harvey Jarvis Underwood, shown driving a Model T across the bridge, helped build it.
The dam that doomed it
The bridge was barely three years old when its future was settled. In 1926 the Carolina Power & Light Company began building a hydroelectric dam at a site about nine miles downstream. In the words of the federal report, the water behind the dam was to be backed up high enough to submerge the bridge and require a new one at a higher elevation.
The reservoir formed in 1928. The North Carolina Gazetteer records that it was first named Norwood Lake, for the nearby town, and was later renamed Lake Tillery for Paul A. Tillery (1880–1933), a former president of the power company. The Gazetteer gives its size as 5,260 acres with 104 miles of shoreline and a maximum depth of 89 feet.
According to Walter R. Turner’s history of the state highway system, Paving Tobacco Road, the Highway Commission and the power company agreed that the company would pay for a replacement bridge and the state would oversee its construction. That bridge opened in 1927. It is the taller concrete arch bridge still in use today, with four open-spandrel arch spans of 210 feet each and a total length of about 1,060 feet.
That left a sound, nearly new concrete arch bridge with no future. Fred T. Morgan of the Stanly News & Press later wrote that it seemed a great waste to destroy so fine and costly a structure. Engineers saw the same fact differently. Full-size bridges are almost never available to be loaded until they crack, and this one was going to be lost anyway.
Round one: 164-ton water tanks
The State Highway Commission and the U.S. Bureau of Public Roads appointed an advisory committee to plan tests “for the benefit of future bridge designers,” as the Federal Highway Administration summarizes it. The committee first met in April 1927. Its chairman was E. F. Kelley of the Bureau of Public Roads, and its members included Dean G. M. Braune of the University of North Carolina, Dean W. C. Riddick of North Carolina State College, the editor of Engineering News-Record, and representatives of the American Society of Civil Engineers, the American Concrete Institute, the American Railway Engineering Association, the U.S. Bureau of Standards and several other bodies, along with four engineers from the Highway Commission itself.
Deflection wires were strung on the bridge in June 1927. Loading began in September, and the report says observations were taken day and night until December. The loads were water. Crews built wooden tanks 12 feet 6 inches wide, 20 feet long and 18 feet high inside. Each held 4,500 cubic feet of water, which the report converts to 33,750 gallons or 281,250 pounds, and each weighed about 47,000 pounds empty. A full tank therefore put a little over 164 tons on the arch, the figure that appears in local accounts.
Fill the test tank yourself
Drag the slider to pump Pee Dee River water into one of the wooden test tanks and watch the load on the arch climb. The figures use the tank dimensions printed in the 1928 federal report.
Source: Gemeny and Hunter, “Loading Tests on a Reinforced Concrete Arch,” Public Roads, December 1928. Tank capacity 281,250 lb of water; empty tank about 47,000 lb.
The tests ran in three series. In the first, a single tank was moved from point to point along one arch. In the second, the deck was cut so that the arch ribs stood free of the roadway structure above them. In the third, two tanks were used together to produce the greatest possible stress where the arch meets its support. Water was added in steps of 91,000, 182,000 and 273,000 pounds.
The bridge cracked, but it did not fall. The report records a crack on the underside of a rib during the first series and, in the third, a visible crack at the springing line extending over four-fifths of the depth of the rib. Its main conclusion was reassuring for the profession: an arch rib freed from the stiffening effect of the deck behaves very nearly as the accepted theory of elastic structures predicts, even at high stresses. The committee approved the final report on November 8, 1928. It was published in the December 1928 and January 1929 issues of Public Roads under the names of Albin L. Gemeny of the Bureau and W. F. Hunter, designing bridge engineer of the Highway Commission. The Bureau also released a 20-minute film of the work.
Engineers roll water tanks onto the arches
Who: N.C. State Highway Commission and U.S. Bureau of Public Roads.
What: Wooden tanks weighing about 164 tons each when full, moved across the arches while instruments measured stress, rotation and deflection.
Result: Cracks in the arch ribs, but no collapse. The bridge carried far more than a highway bridge of its day was expected to carry.
Fort Bragg howitzers shell the roadway
Who: Battery A, 17th Field Artillery (155-mm) and Battery C, 5th Field Artillery (240-mm).
What: 38 high-explosive shells fired from about two miles away at steep angles. The 155-mm guns fired on December 24.
Result: Fifteen hits. Holes in the deck and broken railings, and one cut girder, but the arches and piers stood.
Keystone LB-5 bombers attack from the air
Who: The Air Corps 1st Provisional Bombardment Squadron.
What: Five days of bombing from 6,000 to 8,000 feet, including 600-pound demolition bombs.
Result: Few hits. An official Army photograph caption credits two direct hits. One account says the middle section fell on the last day.
Army engineers finish the job
Who: U.S. Army Corps of Engineers; Company A, 4th Engineers was on duty at the bridge.
What: Charges of high explosive placed directly on chosen parts of the structure. Later accounts give a total of 2,000 pounds placed at the bases.
Result: The bridge came down. Lake Tillery covered the remains in 1928.
Round two: howitzers on Christmas Eve
When the highway engineers were finished they turned the bridge over to the War Department. An account published in the Field Artillery Journal in the spring of 1928, drawn from the official reports, dates the handover to December 17, 1927, and says the tests were run by a board working under the commanding general at Fort Bragg, about 61 miles to the east in a straight line.
The Army gave notice before it began. The Concord Times of December 12 reported an announcement from Fort Bragg that tests on the abandoned Pee Dee River bridge would start on December 18 and continue through the holidays, using artillery fire and bombs from airplanes. State Highway 74, as the road was then numbered, and the county roads on both sides of the river were to be closed while firing was under way, with radio and telephone links to the road guards. Spectators were told to stay away. Anyone at a safe distance, the announcement said, would be too far off to see anything.
The howitzers had been moved toward the river on December 15. Battery A of the 17th Field Artillery, under Capt. S. J. Cutler, brought 155-mm Schneider howitzers and set up about 3,800 yards from the east end of the bridge. Battery C of the 5th Field Artillery, under Capt. M. S. Creusere, emplaced a 240-mm howitzer about 3,200 yards to the east. The First Observation Battery plotted the fall of the shells, the headquarters battery of the 17th ran the traffic control stations, and Company A of the 4th Engineers was on duty at the bridge.
The 155-mm guns fired on December 24, 1927. They shot at very steep angles, roughly 60 to 80 degrees, so that the shells would come down on the deck instead of skipping off it. Of 23 high-explosive rounds, eight struck the bridge and four more landed within a yard of it, which the report called “practically 50 per cent hits.” The 240-mm howitzer fired 15 rounds and hit the bridge seven times, once with a dud.
The damage was instructive mainly for how limited it was. The 155-mm shells tore up the roadway and knocked down the parapets, but a shell landing over a beam did little. The 240-mm shells blew holes about four by six feet in the deck, and one cut out a section of girder, the only round that seriously damaged the main structure. The board also detonated 75-mm, 155-mm and 240-mm shells in place at chosen points on the structure. The board concluded that 75-mm shells were far too small for a target of this kind, that 155-mm fire would damage a concrete bridge without making it impassable, that 240-mm fire could close one, and that the supports of such a bridge are its weakest points but make very small targets.
Scroll sideways for the weapons used. None of these photographs was taken at Swift Island.
Round three: bombers at 6,000 feet
The air attack is the part of the story that grew most in the telling, and it is also the part with the thinnest official record in print. Historian James K. Libbey, in his biography of the aviation pioneer Alexander de Seversky, writes that the War Department was given the use of a Pee Dee River bridge that a new dam was about to submerge, and that the Air Corps’ 1st Provisional Bombardment Squadron attacked it with Keystone LB-5 bombers for five days in December 1927, flying 20 missions a day in clear weather from 6,000 to 8,000 feet. The middle section finally fell on the last day. Even so, Libbey judged that the effort as a whole was clearly a failure in any practical sense.
An official Army photograph distributed to newspapers and dated January 2, 1928 shows a bomb bursting on the bridge. Its caption identifies a direct hit by a 600-pound demolition bomb and states that two direct hits were scored. The artillery report adds that the Air Corps and the Ordnance Department used the bridge to test bomb cases, fuzes and demolition bombs, and that bombs striking the water near a pier, where they acted like mines, did the most harm.
Local memory holds a somewhat different picture. In a 2021 talk to the Stanly County Historical Society, Lewis Bramlett described about 80 sand-filled practice bombs dropped over several days, only one of which hit squarely. He cited a comparison published in the Greensboro Daily News, which likened the bombardier’s task to dropping a pea onto a ribbon stretched across the street from the top of the Jefferson Standard Building. The two versions are not necessarily in conflict, since practice bombs and live demolition bombs may both have been used, but no source available to us reconciles the totals.
What the poor accuracy set in motion is documented. A report on the test reached Maj. Gen. James Fechet, the new chief of the Air Corps, and on January 6, 1928 he wrote to the chief of the Materiel Division at Wright Field stressing the need for a precise bombsight and asking about every sight in use, including the Navy’s newest design. The result, according to Libbey, was an Army order for improved Seversky C-3 sights and prototypes of the Inglis L-1. The Navy’s secret Norden sight, which the Army adopted later, was already in development. It is fair to say that Swift Island showed the Air Corps how badly it needed a better bombsight. It is too much to say that the Norden was invented because of it.
Round four: explosives
In the end the bridge was brought down the way bridges usually are, by charges placed directly against the structure. The artillery report says only that the Corps of Engineers tested varied charges of high explosives on selected members. Turner’s highway history and later local accounts say the final blow was 2,000 pounds of explosive placed at the bases of the structure, and the Bureau of Public Roads film ends with the destruction of the bridge in what it calls War Department experiments. A commercial film crew also recorded the tests. One witness quoted by Bramlett called it the most elaborate peacetime test of war-making machinery ever undertaken by the U.S. Army.
Sources written long afterward disagree about small things. Some give the bridge’s opening as December 1921 instead of 1922, and the Federal Highway Administration’s calendar says it had to be demolished in 1926. The test reports themselves are clear that the loading ran from September to December 1927 and the Army’s firing took place at the end of that December. The lake rose over the wreckage in 1928.
| Round | When | Who | What was used | Result |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Sept.–Dec. 1927 | State Highway Commission and U.S. Bureau of Public Roads | Wooden water tanks, 281,250 lb of water each | Cracks in the arch ribs; no collapse |
| 2 | Dec. 24, 1927 | Battery A, 17th Field Artillery | 23 rounds, 155-mm howitzer, from about 3,800 yards | 8 hits; roadway damaged but passable |
| 2 | December 1927 | Battery C, 5th Field Artillery | 15 rounds, 240-mm howitzer, from about 3,200 yards | 7 hits; holes about 4 by 6 feet; one girder cut |
| 3 | December 1927 | Air Corps 1st Provisional Bombardment Squadron | Keystone LB-5 bombers at 6,000 to 8,000 feet | Two direct hits credited in an Army photo caption |
| 4 | Winter 1927–28 | U.S. Army Corps of Engineers | High-explosive charges on the structure | Bridge destroyed |
What the battle left behind
Reminders of the tests have surfaced more than once. Bramlett notes that unexploded practice bombs were found near the site in May 1955 and again in 1991, when the lake was low. The 1991 bomb was examined by an ordnance disposal team from Fort Bragg, judged safe and returned to Stanly County. It stood for decades on the lawn of the Snuggs House on North Third Street in Albemarle and now sits in front of the Stanly County History Center on North Second Street. Accounts differ on its size, from about 200 pounds to nearly 650.
The replacement bridge has had a long life of its own. A parallel steel bridge for eastbound traffic was completed in 1979, and on July 13 of that year both spans were dedicated as the James B. Garrison Bridge, for a former state senator. In the 2000s the Department of Transportation proposed to replace the 1927 arches as part of widening the highway. The LandTrust for Central North Carolina and others argued for saving them, pointing out that the bridge was eligible for the National Register of Historic Places and was, at that time, one of only five open-spandrel arch bridges left in the state.
The arches were saved. Under a contract awarded in November 2018, crews took the bridge down to its original arches and piers and rebuilt the deck on top of them, widening it from 23 feet to just over 39 feet. Work on the bridge began in May 2019 and finished in May 2021. In 2023 the project won two awards from the Precast/Prestressed Concrete Institute, for best rehabilitated bridge and for sustainable design. The 1927 bridge, built to replace a bridge that lasted five years, is now within sight of its hundredth.
| Bridge | Opened | Type | Main spans | Length | Today |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| First Swift Island Bridge | Dec. 28, 1922 | Reinforced concrete open-spandrel arch | Three arches of 146 ft 3 in | 1,068 ft | Destroyed 1927–28; site under Lake Tillery |
| Second Swift Island Bridge | 1927 | Reinforced concrete open-spandrel arch | Four arches of 210 ft | About 1,060 ft | Rebuilt 2019–2021; carries westbound lanes |
| Eastbound span | 1979 | Steel stringer | — | About 1,140 ft | Carries eastbound lanes |
To see the site, take N.C. 24/27 east from Albemarle about seven miles to the lake. The arches are best viewed from the water or from the shoreline on either side of the bridge. For the wider setting, the summit of Morrow Mountain and the boat access at Lowder’s Ferry, both in Morrow Mountain State Park, look out over the upper lake. The bomb is on public view outside the Stanly County History Center in downtown Albemarle. Our history of Norwood and guide to the Stanly County lakes cover the dam and Lake Tillery in more detail.
Story versus record
Because the Battle of Swift Island Bridge has been retold for almost a century, some details have drifted. These cards set four common versions beside what the period documents say.
Timeline
1841 Stanly County is formed
The Pee Dee River becomes the line between Stanly and Montgomery counties. Ferries, including Swift Island Ferry, carry the traffic.
1922 The first bridge opens
Thousands attend the opening of the three-arch concrete Swift Island Bridge on December 28. It is a Federal-aid project of the State Highway Commission.
1926 Dam construction begins
Carolina Power & Light starts its dam about nine miles downstream, near Norwood. The bridge will be flooded.
April 1927 Test committee meets
An advisory committee appointed by the Highway Commission and the Bureau of Public Roads plans load tests.
Sept.–Dec. 1927 Load tests
Water tanks weighing about 164 tons each are placed on the arches. The ribs crack but hold.
1927 The new bridge opens
A higher four-arch bridge, paid for by the power company and built under state supervision, takes over the traffic.
Dec. 17, 1927 Army takes over
The Highway Commission turns the old bridge over to a board under the commanding general at Fort Bragg.
Dec. 24, 1927 Howitzers fire
Battery A, 17th Field Artillery fires 23 rounds of 155-mm. A 240-mm howitzer of the 5th Field Artillery fires 15 rounds in the same series of tests.
Late Dec. 1927 Bombing
Keystone LB-5 bombers attack from 6,000 to 8,000 feet over five days.
1928 The lake fills
Norwood Lake, later Lake Tillery, covers the site. The test report is approved on November 8 and published that December.
1979 A second span and a name
A parallel steel bridge opens. Both spans are dedicated as the James B. Garrison Bridge on July 13.
1991 A bomb comes ashore
A practice bomb found at the site is cleared by an Army team and later displayed in Albemarle.
2019–2021 The arches are saved
The 1927 bridge is stripped to its arches, rebuilt and widened from 23 feet to just over 39 feet.
Quick quiz: the Battle of Swift Island Bridge
How long was the first Swift Island Bridge in service?
What did engineers use as test weights?
Which weapon finally brought the bridge down?
Questions and answers
Where was the first Swift Island Bridge?
It crossed the Pee Dee River between Stanly and Montgomery counties at Swift Island, at the place where N.C. 24/27/73 crosses Lake Tillery today, but at a lower elevation. The remains have been under the lake since 1928.
When was the Swift Island Bridge destroyed?
Load tests ran from September to December 1927. The Army took over the bridge on December 17, 1927, shelled it on December 24, bombed it over five days in late December, and then demolished it with explosive charges before the lake filled in 1928.
Why did the Army bomb a bridge in North Carolina?
Carolina Power and Light was building a dam near Norwood that would flood the bridge. Since the bridge was going to be lost, the State Highway Commission and the U.S. Bureau of Public Roads used it for engineering load tests and then gave it to the War Department to test artillery, bombs and demolition charges against a real concrete bridge.
Is the old bridge still visible?
No. What remained after the tests is under Lake Tillery. The concrete arch bridge visible today is its 1927 replacement, rebuilt and widened between 2019 and 2021.
Where can I see the Swift Island bomb?
A practice bomb recovered from the site in 1991 is displayed outside the Stanly County History Center on North Second Street in downtown Albemarle.
Sources
- Albin L. Gemeny and W. F. Hunter, “Loading Tests on a Reinforced Concrete Arch,” Public Roads 9, no. 10 (December 1928) and no. 11 (January 1929), U.S. Bureau of Public Roads. National Transportation Library.
- “Field Artillery Firing and Static Detonation of Shell Tests on Swift Island Ferry Bridge: Extracts from Reports,” Field Artillery Journal, March–April 1928, pp. 123–134.
- Federal Highway Administration, “FHWA By Day: December 28.”
- “Pee Dee Bridge Tests to Start on December 18th,” Concord Times, December 12, 1927, p. 3, via DigitalNC.
- James K. Libbey, Alexander P. de Seversky and the Quest for Air Power (Potomac Books, 2013), pp. 86–88, as cited in “Norden bombsight,” Wikipedia.
- U.S. Army photograph and caption, “Air Corps bomb bridge in North Carolina in interesting tests,” dated January 2, 1928.
- Walter R. Turner, Paving Tobacco Road: A Century of Progress by the North Carolina Department of Transportation (N.C. Office of Archives and History, 2003), p. 22, as cited by Carolina Crossroads.
- Stanly News & Press, “Bramlett discusses history behind the Battle of Swift Island Bridge,” August 3, 2021; “Peeking Into the Past: Swift Island Bridge,” December 27, 2021; “Engineer gives update on Swift Island Bridge work,” June 11, 2019.
- William S. Powell, The North Carolina Gazetteer, entry “Lake Tillery,” via NCpedia.
- Precast/Prestressed Concrete Institute, project profile, “Swift Island Historic Arch Bridge Rehabilitation and Widening” (2023 Design Awards).
- UNC Charlotte Urban Institute, “Can public support save sturdy Swift Island Bridge?”; J. A. Bolton, “The Battle of Swift Island Bridge,” parts I and II, Laurinburg Exchange and Richmond County Daily Journal, August 2020.
- DigitalNC, Stanly County Museum photograph of H. J. Underwood on the Swift Island Bridge, record 5320; “James B. Garrison Bridge,” Wikipedia.
If you hold family photographs, newspaper clippings or records that add to or correct this account, the Stanly County Guide would be glad to hear from you through the About page. The Stanly County History Center in Albemarle holds the local collections on the bridge.
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Photo and image credits (14)
Keystone LB-5 biplane bomber in flight, late 1920s — U.S. Air Force photo / Wikimedia Commons, public domain
The 1927 Swift Island Bridge (James B. Garrison Bridge) over Lake Tillery in 2005 — Bz3rk / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0
Lake Tillery, North Carolina — James Willamor / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0
Lake Tillery at the mouth of the Uwharrie River — Bz3rk / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0
Northern portion of Lake Tillery — Bz3rk / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0
Lake Tillery seen from Morrow Mountain State Park — Bz3rk / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0
View of upper Lake Tillery from Morrow Mountain — Donald (Donnie) Pardue / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 2.0
Tillery Hydroelectric Plant and dam near Norwood — Indy beetle / Wikimedia Commons, CC0
Schneider 155-mm howitzer — War Department / National Archives via Wikimedia Commons, public domain
240-mm howitzer M1918 — U.S. Army / Field Artillery Journal via Wikimedia Commons, public domain
Postcard of a 240-mm howitzer firing at Fort Bragg — Boston Public Library / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 2.0
Keystone LB-5 bomber with a Douglas O-2 — U.S. Air Force photo / Wikimedia Commons, public domain
Keystone LB-5 bomber on the ground — U.S. Air Force photo / Wikimedia Commons, public domain
Stanly County road map, circa 1925 to 1935 — Stanly County Museum via Digital Public Library of America / Wikimedia Commons, public domain
Charts, tables, timelines and map overlays: original work by The Stanly County Guide. Basemap tiles © Esri and data partners.
