Henley Bridge Gets Glow-Up Just in Time for Georgia Game

The year of our lord 2025 shall forever be remembered in Knoxville as the Year of the Bridge. (For the record, this is IOK’s second bridge story just this week). I figure it’s time for a palate cleanser: a happy bridge story. 

Why do we care so much about bridges? 

Bridges are, literally and metaphorically, connectors. And connection—whether between opposite banks of a river or between people and ideologies—is something we could all use more of right now. We might disagree about what they should look like, who they’re for, or who’s footing the bill, but everyone agrees we need them.

And there’s one more universal truth I know to be true: people here LOVE bridge lights. Change up the bulbs and we lose our minds. 

This week, the City of Knoxville outdid itself.

If you’re downtown for Vols weekend and savoring Saturday’s showdown with Georgia, be sure to glance toward the Henley Bridge at dusk. The deck lights installed last year will still glow orange and white—but for the first time, the undercarriage of the bridge will blaze with bold Vol orange.

Mayor Indya Kincannon is hyped about it: “We hope this dramatic new orange illumination over the Tennessee River, adjacent to Neyland Stadium, adds to the fun and rich traditions enjoyed by the best fans in college football. I know Georgia fans will be jealous of our amazing waterfront. And of course, I hope it will give our Vols an extra boost as they take on the Bulldogs Saturday.”

The new technology builds on the deck lighting, expanding the system to illuminate the below-deck pillars. The $75,000 project replaces the old six-lights-per-pillar system with four far more powerful fixtures, cutting equipment needs while boosting brightness. Most of the installation was done manually from the water up by the City’s Engineering Department Signal Shop, with help from Stansell Electric and a bucket truck designed to swing electricians safely under the bridge. 

Logan Hayes, signal and lighting coordinator, explains, “We’re cost-saving because we’re using less equipment to provide the same quality, if not better quality of light. The bottom lights run off the same equipment as the top lights do, so we can link them all together. We can run many arrays of different colors and different patterns. We could have one solid color, which really looks awesome on the bridge, or we can have multiple colors.”

Logan gets to play lord of the lights – thanks to Bluetooth connectivity, he can run the system from his tablet from anywhere with Internet access.

Pretty cool. Now, if we can get the Sunsphere in on the action and sync it all up together ….