Natural Bridge

Black text on brown, blue, and green illustration of a natural rock formation.  The rock arch is covered with grass with blue sky visible through the center. 

Natural Bridge is both a Virginia Historic Landmark and a National Historic Landmark in Rockbridge County, Virginia. In the span of thousands of years, Cedar Creek, a tributary of the James River, carved out a gorge in the limestone terrain, leaving a natural arch with a length of 215 ft. and a span of 90 ft. Consisting of horizontal limestone strata, Natural Bridge was once a cave or tunnel from which the Cedar Creek flowed through. The Native American Monocan tribe considered Natural Bridge to be sacred—the site where Monocans defeated pursuing Powhatans in an epic battle, hundreds of years before the first white settlements in Jamestown.