{"id":1563,"slug":"poinsett-bridge-landrum-south-carolina","story":[{"heading":null,"paragraphs":["Poinsett Bridge is the Gothic arch that outlasted the road — the 1820 stone span over Little Gap Creek, the oldest bridge in South Carolina and maybe the Southeast, built for the State Road Joel Poinsett pushed over Saluda Mountain to take Tennessee's trade. The wedge stones are dry-laid, no mortar, the pointed arch holding two centuries of nothing but its own shape; the keystone still carries the date.","Poinsett gave it his name and the poinsettia gave him ours — the botanist-ambassador who supervised the road himself, and the probable hand of Robert Mills, the Washington Monument's architect, in the Gothic design. The road it carried is gone to forest; the bridge is a heritage preserve now, the stone arch that was meant to move commerce standing in the woods it outlasted.","The file keeps Poinsett Bridge: the 1820 arch, the State Road, the poinsettia namesake, and the dry stone that never needed mortar.","Poinsett Bridge is the archive's South Carolina file — the oldest stone span and the road that vanished around it."]},{"heading":"Why this file matters","paragraphs":["Poinsett Bridge is the archive's South Carolina file — the 1820 Gothic arch and the vanished State Road.","A bridge without mortar keeps its arch — the file's suggestion being that Poinsett's hold is the dry stone: the wedge blocks that held for two centuries on nothing but shape, outliving the road that justified them."]}],"name":"Poinsett Bridge","aliases":[],"type":"BRIDGE","type_label":"Bridge","cats":["HAUNTING"],"groups":["hauntings","roads"],"desc":"SCETV recounts moans and cars allegedly failing to start.","full_desc":"A bridge in Landrum, South Carolina, Poinsett Bridge is filed here for what the record attaches to it. SCETV recounts moans and cars allegedly failing to start. The archive files it under haunting reports. The dossier holds 1 reported claim and 1 legend, every one filed as account rather than fact. Visitor status is unverified; confirm before making the trip.","address":null,"city":"Landrum","county":null,"state":"South Carolina","postal":null,"region":"South","lat":35.175225,"lon":-82.182604,"coord_kind":"CITY","status":"UNKNOWN","access":"UNKNOWN","access_notes":null,"ownership":null,"website":null,"phone":null,"year_built":null,"year_opened":null,"year_closed":null,"year_demolished":null,"designation":null,"current_use":null,"research_notes":"Discovery record. Coordinates, earliest legend source, independent history and current visitor rules require further verification.","stage":"SOURCE_RESEARCH","quality":{"level":"LOW","score":43.1,"dims":{"location_confidence":0.75,"identity_confidence":0.65,"historical_confidence":0,"source_quality":0.6,"paranormal_claim_provenance":0.8,"coordinate_confidence":0,"current_access_confidence":0,"freshness":0.65}},"claims":[{"id":786,"type":"ELECTRONIC_ANOMALY","description":"SCETV recounts moans and cars allegedly failing to start. Every road has its ghost story; Poinsett Bridge in Landrum, South Carolina is the one the file actually recorded. The account has a collector's pedigree — written down as legend, which is the most honest status it can hold. Nothing here would make headlines alone; together the reports make a pattern.","evidence":"DOCUMENTED_LEGEND","evidence_label":"Documented legend","entity":null,"where":null,"first_report":null,"approx_date":null,"confidence":0.75,"conflict_notes":null,"source":{"name":"15 Ghost Stories from South Carolina","url":"https://www.scetv.org/stories/2024/15-ghost-stories-south-carolina","publisher":"South Carolina ETV","type":"LOCAL_JOURNALISM","authority":3},"conflicting_source":null,"variants":[]}],"history":[],"legends":[{"name":null,"summary":"SCETV recounts moans and cars allegedly failing to start. Every road has its ghost story; Poinsett Bridge in Landrum, South Carolina is the one the file actually recorded. '15 Ghost Stories from South Carolina' preserves the telling; the record keeps it filed where it belongs, as lore. The report is preserved in sources like '15 Ghost Stories from South Carolina'. Legends accrue where records go silent; this one filled the gap and stayed.","earliest":null,"evidence":"DOCUMENTED_LEGEND","source":{"name":"15 Ghost Stories from South Carolina","url":"https://www.scetv.org/stories/2024/15-ghost-stories-south-carolina","publisher":"South Carolina ETV","type":"LOCAL_JOURNALISM","authority":3}}],"entities":[],"events":[],"investigations":[],"encounters":[],"media":[],"persons":[],"visitor":{"tour_availability":"Verify before visiting","notes":"Access details are unverified; research before visiting.","last_verified_at":"2026-09-18 11:32:55","source":{"name":"HauntHunt generic access guidance","url":"https://haunthunt.com/about#access-guidance","publisher":"HauntHunt editorial","type":"DIRECTORY","authority":2}},"sources":[{"name":"15 Ghost Stories from South Carolina","url":"https://www.scetv.org/stories/2024/15-ghost-stories-south-carolina","publisher":"South Carolina ETV","type":"LOCAL_JOURNALISM","authority":3}],"conflicts":[],"wiki":{"title":"Poinsett Bridge","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poinsett_Bridge","desc":"Bridge in Greenville County, South Carolina","extract":"Poinsett Bridge is the oldest bridge in South Carolina and perhaps in the entire southeastern United States. Named for Joel Roberts Poinsett, it was built in 1820 as part of the Old Buncombe Road from Columbia, South Carolina, to Saluda Mountain. The stone bridge, which includes a 14-foot (4.3 m) Gothic arch and stretches 130 feet (40 m) over Little Gap Creek, may have been designed by Robert Mills, architect of the Washington Monument. Though no longer in use, the bridge remains largely intact and is part of the 400-acre (161.9 ha) Poinsett Bridge Heritage Preserve. There is a nature trail a few hundred yards from the bridge. The bridge, about which ghost stories have been told for decades,","img":"https://thumb.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/b/bd/Poinsett_Bridge_in_Greenville_County_South_Carolina.jpg/330px-Poinsett_Bridge_in_Greenville_County_South_Carolina.jpg?utm_source=en.wikipedia.org&utm_campaign=api&utm_content=thumbnail","score":93,"lat":35.12947222,"lon":-82.38427778},"counts":{"claims":1,"history":0,"legends":1,"entities":0,"sources":1}}