MYSTERY PHOTO: Another bridge

Here’s another bridge that may look familiar.  Send your best guess to editor@charlestoncurrents.com. And don’t forget to include your name and the town in which you live.

Our last Mystery Photo, “Bridge to somewhere” is the 2003-era Paul Gelegotis Bridge on Maybank Highway over the Stono River between James and Johns islands.  

A pat on the back to those who guessed it was a bridge in North Charleston, Hilton Head, Daniel Island and more.  But big congratulations to all of the home-bound sleuths who correctly identified: George Graf of Palmyra, Va.; Chris Brooks of Mount Pleasant; Marnie Huger of Richmond, Va.; Jay Altman of Columbia; Allan Peel of San Antonio, Texas; Rindell Hardison; Stephen Yetman, Ralph Parrado and Amanda Hicks, all of Charleston; and Jason Appelt. (Reminder:  Please tell us the city where you live when you send in guesses.)

Graf shared a bunch of information about the bridge named for Gelegotis, a James Island businessman and politician also known as the father of the Emergency Medical System, or EMS, in South Carolina.

“There have been several bridges in this location,” Graf shared.  “The site of the current bridge is among several sites of a slave rebellion called the Stono Rebellion, one of the earliest known organized acts against slavery in the Americas. On Sept. 9, 1739, 20 black slaves raided a store near the bridge; in the process they killed two storekeepers and took guns and gunpowder. 

“A wooden bridge on this site survived an attempt by Union forces to burn it during the American Civil War. Union troops floated burning rafts down to the Stono Bridge, hoping the wooden structure would catch fire and burn. However, their efforts were thwarted by a Lieutenant Smith, who along with members of a naval battalion, brought the rafts to shore.”

• Send us a mystery:  If you have a photo that you believe will stump readers, send it along (but make sure to tell us what it is because it may stump us too!)   Send it along to editor@charlestoncurrents.com.