Tourism officials work to clear up misconceptions about visitors center bridge replica

Although it is meant to highlight the valiant defense of Kinston during the Civil War, a wooden replica of part of the Jones Bridge burned during the First Battle of Kinston is evoking thoughts of the darker side of life during that time, according to local tourism officials.

“I have had numerous phone calls and questions; (people ask) ‘Is this a gallows?’ ” Lucy Marston, Lenoir County tourism director, said of the 24-foot-long wooden structure, which can be found outside the Lenoir County Visitors and Information Center.

The structure is a partial replica of the bridge built to replace the original Jones Bridge over the Neuse River, which Union troops destroyed following their brief occupation of Kinston after the First Battle of Kinston during December 1862.

Marston said the replacement bridge resembled the original, and the replica was designed based on photographs of that replacement. It is a mockup of the drawbridge section of the bridge and the tower used to raise and lower the span with ropes.

The replica is not built to scale, though; recreation director Bill Ellis, who helped build it, said it is about one-fourth as wide as the original.

“There have been misconceptions as to what the structure is,” she said.

Starting last April, local Boy Scouts, adult volunteers and Recreation Department staffers spent about six months building the replica, which visitors can walk out on and get a view of U.S. 70 and the Neuse River beyond it.

“It’s sturdy,” Troop 555 committee chairman Jeff Howard said. “You could drive a vehicle on there without any problem.”

Scouts with troops 555 and 240, which are sponsored by the local Mormon congregation, worked with church members and Recreation staffers.

Howard said the volunteers sank about eight telephone poles 4 feet in the ground and surrounded them with concrete to create the pilings.

The span and the tower were built using new lumber and heart pine taken from the Blount Street train depot in downtown Kinston as it was being demolished last year, Howard said.

The structure was finished last fall.

Barbara and Pat Hyde of West Dover, Vt., were driving along U.S. 70 on Wednesday on their way to visit family in New Bern when they spotted the visitors center and the bridge replica.

While his wife did not notice the replica at first, Pat Hyde immediately recognized it as a bridge and was surprised when told some people had mistaken it for a gallows.

“All the ropes might make some people think that way, but it looks like a bridge to me,” he said.

Barbara Hyde said the replica resembles wooden bridges that are common in her home state.

She was impressed with the structure, though.

“It looks like it could get you across (the river),” she said.

David Anderson can be reached at 252-559-1077 or danderson@freedomenc.com.