Hertford: The S-Curve Bridge and Oldest Inland Town in Carolina

Hertford is the seat of Perquimans County and one of the oldest inland towns in North Carolina, established in seventeen fifty-eight on the Perquimans River near Albemarle Sound. The county itself is older still, tracing back to one of the original Albemarle precincts in the late sixteen hundreds. The town's most famous feature is its one-lane S-curve swing bridge, built in nineteen twenty-eight , a hand-cranked wooden drawbridge that requires the bridge tender to literally walk across the roadway and push the span open. It is one of the oldest operating swing bridges in the United States and has become improbably iconic among coastal road-trippers.