PICKENS — An historic bridge will open the way to the future at the Hagood Mill.

A crew from the county’s Roads and Bridges Department moved the Prater’s Creek bridge to its permanent home, spanning the creek at the Hagood Mill.

The new bridge, once completed, will allow museum staff to take further advantage of the five-acre Hagood Mill site.

The bridge has long been a fixture in Pickens County, said Hagood Mill site manager Ed Bolt.

“This bridge was built by the Greenville Steel and Foundry Company in 1930,” Bolt said. “To the best of our knowledge, it served Pickens County in 2 different locations, once on

the Twelve Mile River and, much later, on Prater’s Creek.

It was brought out here in 2007,” he continued. “It was cleaned by volunteers, painted by prison inmates and, most importantly, installed by Pickens County Roads and Bridges.”

The Road and Bridges Department have been working on the bridge project off and on for the past 2 years, as the department’s schedule allowed, said Pickens County Museum Director Allen Coleman.

“The Hagood Mill, as everyone knows, has come a long way in the last 13 years, especially in the past ten,” Coleman said. “It’s been amazing. We’ve always had the vision of making this history park more accessible.

The site’s focus has been on the history of the Hagood Mill from the early 1800’s up to the 1960’s, but the discovery of prehistoric rock art on the Mill’s site caused museum officials to look at the Mill site’s interpretation in a whole new way.

“When we discovered the petroglyphs out here, it changed everything,” Coleman said.

“Now the history and interpretation of the site goes all the way to historic times with the indigenous people,” he said. “Between the nineteenth century, the prehistoric and the Depression-era, we’re pretty much going to cover our bases on the spiritual and agrian history of Pickens County in this one history park.”

The path that the bridge now sits upon was once part of the Cherokee Path, Coleman said.

“Later they used that path when they built the original road to Rosman,” he said.

The bridge allows museum and Hagood Mill staff to begin planning ways to utilize the acreage across the creek, Coleman said.

Staff hopes to be able to utilize the original logs from the Burdine Cabin at Hagood Mill, he said.

Other possibilities for the land include an old schoolhouse or a water-powered sawmill, Coleman said.

Moving the bridge from its former location just above the site’s rock art clears the way for that project to begin once funds are secured, Coleman said.

“We’re raising funds to build the SC Rock Art Center,” he said.

Fundraising has been slow, due to the economy, but the mail-in campaign has begun, Coleman said.

“We hope to raise $400, 000,” he said. “That’ll pay for everything that needs to be done.”

There are some corporate sponsorship naming opportunities available with the Rock Art Center, he said.

Coleman and Bolt expressed their gratitude for the county and the City of Pickens for collaborating with the Pickens County Museum and Hagood Mill to see the project through.

“I hope the Roads and Bridges employees are just as proud of this project as they are,” Bolt said. “A lot of times, people don’t notice the work that department does around the area, but people are going to notice and appreciate this bridge.”

Planking on the bridge, and a dirt ramp leading up to the bridge, should be installed within the next few weeks, and the museum hopes to hold a dedication ceremony for the bridge within the next month, Bolt said.

“It’s going to be nice looking,” he said.