Marion Brothers Store & The Siloam Bridge Collapse

June 22, 2025

Marion Brothers Store & The Siloam Bridge Collapse

Sometimes when you come across an old general store, there's much more to it than meets the eye. An example is the Marion Brothers Store in the rural Southern Surry County of Siloam.

Marion Brothers Store - Siolam (Adam Prince, March 2025)

The store, built in the 1890s, has been listed on the National Register of Historic Places since 2012. The two-story building housed a general store and roller mill on the first floor and apartments on the second floor. The store and roller mill operated until 1940, and the building continued to house residents into the 1960s. After the general store closed, the lower-floor business area was once a tobacco pack house.

The Marion Brothers Store is one of the last remnants of a small but thriving railroad community. Siloam, named after the Pools of Siloam, was first settled in the late 1700s, and by 1837, a post office was established. When the Northwestern North Carolina Railroad came through in 1890, a small commercial center, including the Marion Brothers Store, developed.

Sitting above the store is the Marion Home. The home was built by Jubal Early Marion after buying land from his future brothers-in-law, Richard Elwell and Micajah Coke Reeves. Marion purchased the land in March 1861, then built the home before marrying Jane Jones Reeves on New Year's Eve 1861.

The home saw two major additions in 1895 and 1913. The Marion Brothers Store is part of the Marion property. Both were added to the National Register of Historic Places in 2012. The property remains owned and occupied by descendants of the Marion Family.

The Sentinel (Winston-Salem) File Photo published February 24, 1975.

Siloam is the site of one of North Carolina's highway disasters. The February 1975 collapse of a one-lane steel truss bridge over the Yadkin River claimed the lives of four North Carolinians and injured sixteen others. Two of those killed were Ola and Hugh Atkinson, who were living in the Marion House at the time. Ola Atkinson was the great-granddaughter of Jubal and Jane Marion. The other two victims were 27-year-old Judy Needham and her three-year-old daughter Andrea. They were riding with their husband/father, Thomas, who survived.

The single-lane bridge was moved to Siloam in 1938, and by the 1970s, it had already outlived its usefulness. Local residents were "...always glad when [they] got across."

The collapsed Siloam Bridge (Hubert Jones - The Sentinel (Winston-Salem) - Feb 24, 1975)

The cause of the bridge collapse on that foggy Monday evening has been disputed. While local residents pointed to years of negligence by the North Carolina Division of Highways, the official report by the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) cites that the official cause of the collapse occurred when James Venable's vehicle collided with a critical piece of the bridge's support structure.

A new two-lane replacement bridge opened in 1976. The bridge is named the Atkinson-Needham Memorial Bridge in honor of the families of the four killed that night.

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