Dam Jam and More

Last Sunday a few local musicians came together with their instruments to the Glendale Shoals Bridge over Lawson's Fork Creek in Glendale, SC to play at the musical get-together named "Dam Jam". This was a perfect chance for me to listen to some acoustic music and also explore more of Glendale.

The jam started at 4pm, but I arrived about an hour early to explore the area where Glendale Park once beckoned mill village residents and visitors. I headed down a path, which very well may have been the same path mill residents used to get to the park. This path provides a good view of the mill pond, the bridge, and even the people setting up for the jam.

Glendale Park was built at the same time as the trolley line from Spartanburg to Clifton being built through the area in 1900. The first mentions of the park I can find in newspaper archives are from 1901. Postcards from the era depict the park quite differently than it looks today:

from the Spartanburg County Public Library


from the Spartanburg County Public Library

The path continues down to where a trestle once crossed over Lawson's Fork Creek. This is also where a sluice for Wofford's Iron Works is located.

The sluice and a waterwheel provided power for the iron works. I can't imagine how much work it must have been to carve out this sluice by hand.

I found plenty of reminders a trestle once crossed here.

I also found an old roadbed, possibly for the Old Georgia Road:

I didn't want to get too deep into the woods and miss the jam, so I started back. This time I followed a path along the old railroad trolley right of way.

I made this map for previous trips to Glendale that shows (in green) the path of the trolley railroad through Glendale.

I crossed the highway toward the Glendale Shoals Bridge. Along the way, I found Tom Taylor, who I've gone with on adventures from time to time, unloading his musical instruments for the jam. I helped him with this equipment then I went back to my car to swap my backpack for a chair.

Update: His post about Dam Jam and other events is up on his blog.

The temperature was well above average in the mid-90s F, but at least there was a some shade and a breeze. There were almost as many performers as spectators!

I recorded two songs. The first was I Saw The Light originally by Hank Williams Sr.

The second was Tom Taylor singing Amazing Grace, a hymn by John Newton published in 1779.

While getting the embed codes for those two videos, I made an interesting discovery. Someone has made a copyright claim again my video of "Amazing Grace"!. The song is long in the public domain, so I'm going to say this is yet another example of Youtube's insanity lately.

I disputed the claim on principle. Let's see what happens here.

While Dam Jam was still ongoing, I headed down to take some photos of the refurbished bridge and the dam.

Glendale Shoals Bridge is a Pratt truss bridge built in 1928, replacing a single lane bridge. The bridge closed to vehicle traffic in 1977 when a road realignment routed traffic away from the bridge. The bridge was rehabilitated in 2017-2018 to replace rivets, replace the deck, add lights, and repaint the bridge (among other improvements).

After about two hours, Tom told me had to head home. The temperature had started to drop, but the breeze died and the humidity became rather oppressive to me. I decided to go too, but not before I took a few photos while I walked around the mill ruins.

I was quite a relieved when I got back in my car and got the air conditioning running. It's insane that late Septembers have been like this for two years in a row now. Yeesh!

Dam Jam and More photo album link: Google Photos