Mitchell County Bridge 225 (Lunday Footbridge)

The state's Bridge Maintenance Unit erected this pedestrian footbridge over the North Toe River in 1961 to continue to serve the tiny side-by-side mining communities of Lunday and Kona. (The two stand within the feldspar-rich Spruce Pine Mining District. Indeed, Kona's name is said by some to derive from one of the chemical compositions of feldspar, which can include potassium (K), oxygen (O), and sodium (Na).) The structure was an in-kind replacement of a footbridge that had crossed the river since the early 20th century, when the once-larger communities were served by two railroads, the Clinchfield and the Black Mountain. The 1910 former W. Bristo Ellis store and post office, which was supplied by rail, continues to stand on the east bank of the Toe immediately adjacent to the bridge.

The bridge is 200-feet-long and only two-and-a-half-feet wide. It has a timber stringer approach span at its northwest end and a suspended span over the river. The main cables are one-inch-diameter steel wires anchored at the southeast by looping them around steel pipes and bolts driven into a rock outcropping. Several generations of bolts and anchors are visible in the rock, attesting to the fact that this structure replaced an earlier bridge at the same location. The anchorage at the opposite end is buried in the hillside. The walkway is suspended from steel rod hangers looped over the cables, which carry timber floorbeams, a wooden plank deck, and woven-wire fence railing. The welded towers are composed of salvaged I beams and channel-shaped members. State records identify no major alterations and only routine maintenance, such as the in-kind replacement of the deck and floorbeams in 1988.