{"id":8575,"date":"2025-02-06T07:03:08","date_gmt":"2025-02-06T12:03:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/legeros.com\/blog\/?p=8575"},"modified":"2026-04-03T11:43:04","modified_gmt":"2026-04-03T15:43:04","slug":"siloam-bridge-collapse","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/legeros.com\/blog\/siloam-bridge-collapse\/","title":{"rendered":"Siloam Bridge Collapse – February 23, 1975"},"content":{"rendered":"

Updated: March 25, 2025, with additional clippings and artifacts added to the linked Google Drive. This is a blog version of a Facebook posting from February 2025.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

Here’s a short summary about the Siloam Bridge Collapse, that we learned about this week.\u00a0<\/p>\n

This happened on Sunday night, February 23, 1975, in Siloam, NC, on the border of Surry and Yadkin counties, in the community of Siloam. At about 9:25 p.m. in heavy fog, a car struck a supporting beam of the steel-truss bridge over the Yadkin River. The 387-foot long, 64-foot high single-lane bridge (built in 1938) buckled and collapsed.<\/p>\n

Driver James T. Venable, 46, of Winston-Salem remembered “one second I was driving along and the next second I was flying through the air.” He didn’t remember hitting anything, reported the next day’s Winston-Salem Journal.<\/p>\n

There were other vehicles on the bridge as well as others approaching, unaware of the collapse. A total of five automobiles, a pick-up truck, and a “Jeepster” went into the river. Four people were killed and sixteen injured, the newspaper reported.<\/p>\n

The first emergency unit to arrive was from Fall Creek Volunteer Fire Department. Subsequent arriving agencies included Pilot Mountain Rescue Squad and recently formed Yadkin County Rescue Squad.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

Fire and rescue units from four counties responded over the course of the incident, from Surry, Yadkin, Stokes, and Forsyth.<\/p>\n

That’s the short summary. Read more below.\u00a0<\/p>\n

More Information<\/strong><\/p>\n

Read newspaper articles, see incident reports and summaries, and other artifacts in this Google Drive folder<\/a>.<\/p>\n

See also these photos from the Winston-Salem Journal, in this retrospective<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Read another retrospective in this Abandoned, NC, blog posting<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n

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