Most People Have No Idea This Hundred-Year-Old Underwater Bridge In South Carolina Even Exists

Most of South Carolina's recreational lakes are man-made and as such, there are some very interesting things that are found beneath the surface of most of them. We've written here about entire underwater towns, a submerged plane, cemeteries, and more. But this underwater bridge in South Carolina at the bottom of Lake Murray is equally fascinating.

Let's start with Lake Murray, a 50,000-acre reservoir that's 41 miles long and 14 miles wide at the widest point. It was created in the 1920s to provide hydroelectric power to parts of South Carolina.

At 16 miles long, it flooded a huge territory when the reservoir was filled upon the completion of the Dreher Shoals Dam. There are scores of interesting things found at the bottom of Lake Murray including a B-25 Mitchell bomber plane and a graveyard with more than 2,000 graves.

But one of the most fascinating things recently discovered by divers is a mostly intact steel camel-back truss bridge submerged in approximately 100 feet of water. It was called the Wyse's Ferry Bridge and it was built in 1911.

Seen here on a sonar image from 2006, Wyse's Ferry Bridge at that time looked great for a bridge that's been underwater for almost a hundred years.

Wyse's Ferry Bridge was built to cross the Saluda River. It was submerged in 1929, just shy of the 20th anniversary of its official opening. Coordinates for the bridge's location posted by Bridgehunter place the bridge about halfway between Lake Murray's Goat Island and Bomb Island (famous for its annual Purple Martin migration).

See the bridge underwater in this impressive video posted to YouTube in September of 2021 by user South Carolina Scuba Diving:

Did you know about this underwater bridge in South Carolina? What other things do you know of that are found at the bottom of our man-made lakes? Lake Murray's sunken bomber plane mentioned above isn't the only plane at the bottom of a lake in South Carolina.