Once a year: Longest covered bridge in North Carolina opens for visitors

There's something other-worldly about stepping onto a covered bridge. It feels like by the time you get to the other side, you could step out in another time. This is particularly true of the longest covered bridge in North Carolina. Stretching 140 feet across rushing water, it feels like a portal through history.

People traveling down NC-42 into Sanford are greeted by this unexpected, rustic sight. Complete with an old windmill, it runs parallel to a modern concrete bridge over the same rushing water.

On the other side of the road, an old-timey grist mill churns out wheat and cornmeal. Moonshine stills catch the sunlight. Old-world brick pottery kilns bake handmade pottery.

As it turns out, if you cross this covered bridge, you really do step out in another time. The bridge opens once a year for visitors to cross – and step into the historic Ole Gilliam Mill Park.

The land's history as a mill site has been traced back to the 1850s, when a man named Stephen Henley built the original mill. For decades, the mill provided for the surrounding rural community.

By the 1870s, it was sold to Alexander McIver, according to history compiled by the park's historians. McIver was a prominent member of Lee County, working as a college professor of mathematics after graduating from UNC. He was later elected to represent Mecklenburg County at two sessions of the constitutional convention of 1865-66.

The Gilliam family bought the mill, along with around 500 acres of the surrounding land, in the 1890s. They ran the mill for decades.

Despite the popularity and prominence of mills during the 1800s and early 1900s, very few mills are standing today. This is because many mills – built of dry wood and sitting alongside major water sources – were either burned down or washed away in floods.

Such was the fate of the Ole Gilliam Mill, which was washed away in 1928.

Very few mills are ever restored. Stone foundations, crumbling with age, can often be found overgrown in the woods near old rivers and water sources – graveyards of old mill sites.

But in the 1970s, a group of men decided to rebuild the historic mill. Today's Ole Gilliam Mill is a faithful reproduction of the original structure, with all working parts being obtained from other old mills around the south.

Worth Pickard, along with his friends Eddie Paschal, Bill Freeman, Bill Nielsen and George Pickard, built the historic reproduction as a passion project.

Looking at the impressive display today, it's hard to believe it was all built by a group of men on their weekends.

From sunrise to sunset, people are allowed to visit and wander the park at their leisure. It may look empty, but visitors are allowed to walk around, cross the bridge and take photos.

The event, which usually draws around 1,000 guests, serves up a food truck, BBQ and Yarborough's Homemade Ice Cream. They even sell fresh milled wheat and cornmeal, just like North Carolinians would have eaten more than a century ago.

They also fire up the saw mill and the kiln, offer blacksmith demonstrations and sell handmade NC pottery made right there on site.