SC has an iconic bridge that’s the only one of its kind in the US. Here’s what makes it special

The man who designed the Liberty Bridge over the Reedy River in downtown Greenville describes it as providing an amphitheater for Reedy River Falls.

Miguel Rosales, who was hired by the city of Greenville to design the pedestrian walkway, convinced Mayor Knox White he was the architect for the job because he told White, “I’ve never seen a great urban waterfall before. The bridge should be designed to complement the falls, not to compete with it,” White remembered Thursday.

The now-22-year-old bridge never gets old, not by visitors certainly, but also not by Greenvillians themselves. And it is the only one of its kind in the United States.

It has a curved deck with a single suspension cable attached on the outer zone of the curvature.

“The Liberty Bridge is considered one of the best pedestrian bridges worldwide and has received numerous international and national design awards,” the city says on its website.

It was an idea that took a great deal of effort to make happen.

White said it began with the Carolina Foothills Garden Club hiring landscape architect Andrea Means to design an early vision of Falls Park.

At the time, there was still a hulking concrete automobile bridge across the Reedy that quite literally blocked the view of what has become so famous for Greenville, the falls themselves.

White navigated tours through underbrush to show people just how magnificent the falls were.

“It was hard to access from Main Street,” White said. “It was dark under the bridge. Not a comfortable place to be.”

But he had to show them to get that old bridge torn down.

“Fair to say most residents at the time had never actually seen the falls, even people born and raised in Greenville,” he said. “We were basically saying ‘let’s spend $13 million to build a beautiful park around a waterfall you’ve never seen. Trust us!”’

The bridge was removed by 2002 and a small committee advertised for an engineer/ designer.

Rosales of Boston was chosen.

“He was surprised and delighted that a city in SC wanted to build a pedestrian bridge,” White said. “It really appealed to him. His career since then has grown — he’s achieved international status — and pedestrian bridges are his hallmark”.

The $4.5 million bridge was paid for by the City of Greenville’s Hospitality Tax and a donation from the Liberty Corporation, which was a Greenville-based insurance and media company.

The bridge is named for Liberty Corporation founder W Frank Hipp and his children, Francis M. Hipp, Herman N Hipp, B. Calhoun Hipp, and Dorothy Hipp Gunter.

It took 12 months to build.

The city website says Chris Britton, structural division manager for Taylor and Murphy, described the bridge as “an ultra lightweight bridge, which almost looks like it’s floating on air.”

Here are the specs: 345 feet long, 12 feet wide and 8 inches thick, the concrete reinforced deck is supported by a single suspension cable. The deck’s distinctive curve has a radius of 214 feet, and it is cantilevered toward the waterfall from supporting cables on the outside. The bridge deck also inclines 12 feet or 3% from east to west over the river.