1924 Wil-Cox Bridge Opening Photos

Earlier this month, I brought over the feature I did on the Wil-Cox Bridge on the old website to the blog. The seven arch concrete open-spandrel bridge opened in 1924 and was a key piece of the Central Highway. Recently, Ben Thurkill sent along a handful of photos from the bridge's 1924 opening. The five photos below are part of the NCDOT archives.

Today, the Wil-Cox Bridge is slowly becoming a center piece for a regional park. In August 2015, Davidson County Commissioners agreed to take over the bridge from the state. The state transferred the $2.5 million that would have been used to demolish the historic bridge to the county. Those funds are being used for bridge preservation and future development of the regional park. In 2016, Davidson County purchased nearly 14 nearby acres that included Fort York, a Confederate Fort built in the waning years of the Civil War. Davidson County intends on unveiling a master plan for the Wil-Cox Bridge, Fort York, and the regional park early in 2017.

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I-40 rockslide uncovers old debates on highway

The Asheville Citizen-Times continues to do a great job covering all the angles of the Interstate 40 Haywood County rock slide. An article in Sunday's edition provides a strong historical perspective on how the Pigeon River routing of Interstate 40 came about. And perhaps most strikingly, in an article that ran just prior to the highway's opening in the fall of 1968, how engineers from both Tennessee and North Carolina warned "...that slides would probably be a major problem along the route for many years." On February 12, 1969, not long after the Interstate opened, the first rock slide that would close I-40 occurred. Like many other Interstates within North Carolina, Interstate 40 through the mountains has a history prior to formation of the Interstate Highway System and was also a heated political battle between local communities. The discussion for a road that would eventually become Interstate 40 dates back to the 1940's as the idea for interregional high

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