UPDATE 23-MAY-2025:
The area surrounding the "Bridge to Nowhere" is currently being renovated, and the bridge itself is currently missing.
Image of The Bridge To Nowhere before it was removed. Submitted by a fellow Geocacher.
This area was once home to a large mill that utilized water from nearby Pistol Creek via a concrete mill race. Large remnants of the mill race are still present.
Until about a year ago, there was a very small bridge that went over this mill race, known as The Bridge to Nowhere. The bridge was officially constructed and maintained by the Maryville-Alcoa Greenway and served as a small pedestrian shortcut to get to the main greenway path.
Recent nearby construction led to the ultimate removal of The Bridge to Nowhere, but this cache remains to serve in its memory. This cache was originally hidden under the bridge, and required getting in the mill race itself for retrieval. Now that the bridge is gone, you can find this cache in the thick grass right next to where it used to be. Just imagine you were crossing the bridge, going toward Pistol Creek, and then look in the brush after taking a few steps.
Inside you will find a few items to trade, a logbook, and a pencil. Please bring your own pen just in case the pencil is lost. Make sure to hide the cache back better than you found it!
In honor of officially re-hiding this Geocache, the First To Find will be rewarded with a trackable FTF Microcoin! Feel free to keep it or let it travel to other Geocaches.
**Note: The Additional Hint is no longer helpful as it references the old hiding spot.
ORIGINAL (outdated) POSTING (12-JUN-2014):
The Bridge to Nowhere: Redux.
This was the the location of the first and only geocache I had ever hidden, way back in 2005. The original cache is now archived, but I decided to make an effort this summer to recreate it. This time, however, the cache is hidden much better.
The coordinates should take you directly to the location of the cache: a Bridge to Nowhere. The location itself was once home to an old mill that used a man-made mill race to gather water from nearby Pistol Creek. The mill is long gone, but the mill race still exists, along with a Bridge to Nowhere. You can access this cache from the nearby Maryville/Alcoa Greenbelt, or by parking nearby. There are also picnic tables nearby that anyone is welcome to use.
The container itself is fairly well disguised (much moreso than the original cache that was here). It may take you some manual labor to open the cache. The cache container itself is a cylindrical tube with a twist cap on the end attached via velcro to a larger container that houses it, meaning you can detach the small container in order to look inside, sign the log, etc. I only ask that you screw the lid back on tightly, re-attach the smaller container back to the larger container, and place the larger container exactly how it was found. Try to keep the larger container as firmly attached to its hiding spot as it was when you found it. (This will all make a lot more sense once you find the cache).
The FTF will be rewarded with a "Cache In, Trash Out" (CITO) Geocoin! Please take it to another cache of your choosing!