Lake Lure Flowering Bridge Project

Mission

The Lake Lure Flowering Bridge is a community-based volunteer organization. Its mission is to preserve and enhance Historic Bridge #7 across the Rocky Broad River by designing, creating and maintaining a flowering pedestrian walkway to include areas at both ends of the bridge for the joy and benefit of all who come our way.

The Lake Lure Flowering Bridge is being developed on the historic Rocky Broad River bridge. From 1925 to 2011, the bridge carried traffic on the roadway where US 64, US 74A and NC 9 are joined from the south end of Lake Lure to Bat Cave where the three highways diverge again. In 2011, the North Carolina Department of Transportation completed a new bridge a few yards upstream from the site of the old and closed the older structure to traffic. The historic bridge is 155 feet long and 20 feet wide, and flowers will dot its entire length.

Garden space will also extend beyond either end of the bridge itself.

The 1925 bridge is a three-arch span. Its original design included eight light posts topped by decorative lamps. Those were removed years ago, but an effort to locate and/or replicate them in the design of the Lake Lure Flowering Bridge is underway. From the bridge, the famous Chimney Rock, now part of Chimney Rock State Park, is visible upstream and Lake Lure itself is visible downstream where the Rocky Broad flows into the lake.

The Historic Bridge was turned over to the Town of Lake Lure to allow for the creation of this unique community garden bridge, to be developed by local people to further enhance the natural beauty of the Hickory Nut Gorge for generations to come.

The fundraiser was a success!