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Benjamin Mack Sawyer (1890 -1940) was the Chief Highway Commissioner/ Executive Director of the South Carolina Highway Department between the years 1926 and 1940. Nicknamed “Builder Ben,” Sawyer oversaw a period in South Carolina during which the number of roads in the highway system nearly doubled and the number of paved roads grew from 228 in 1925 to 6,537 in 1940. Recognized as a honest, jovial man, full of energy but never too busy to share information about his department, Sawyer transformed the department from a full time staff of 250 to a fully functioning state agency with several thousand employees.

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History

Local History

The historic Ben Sawyer Bridge was built in 1945 to carry locals and visitors between the east cooper barrier islands of Sullivan’s Island and the Isle of Palms with Mount Pleasant and the rest of the Charleston area. For years, it was the only vehicular access for both Sullivan’s Island and the neighboring Isle of Palms.

The Ben Sawyer Bridge drew significant attention nationwide when Hurricane Hugo came ashore in the Charleston area in 1989. The storm essentially picked up and rotated the swing span, leaving it tilted at a 45-degree angle, which created one of the lasting images of the hurricane’s devastation. The swing span was lifted back into place on October 5, 1989. One lane of the bridge was re-opened to traffic on October 8, 1989.

Hurricane Hugo and new national bridge standards led the South Carolina Department of Transportation (SCDOT) to address the aging Ben Sawyer span and review hurricane evacuation options for the east cooper islands. The review led SCDOT to build a fixed span hurricane evacuation route from the Isle of Palms, opening the Isle of Palms Connector in 1993.

Community input at public hearings reinforced the desire to maintain the Ben Sawyer Bridge’s aesthetic appearance and current right of way. The SCDOT chose to rehabilitate the truss and approach superstructures and bring in a comparable structure within the right of way under a design/build contract that was signed in the fall of 2008 with construction to begin in 2009.

The bridge’s rehabilitation includes replacing the approaches to the bridge, replacing the steel superstructure on the swing span, as well as replacing the electrical and mechanical systems. The $32.5 million project is funded entirely by federal dollars. The project is expected to take less than two years to complete.

The Official Website of the state of South Carolina