Bridging the Mississippi

LITTLE ROCK — Tuesday, Sept. 17, 1940, was quite a day for residents of Southeast Arkansas and the Mississippi Delta.

People came from miles around for the dedication of the $4.5 million bridge over the Mississippi River between Lake Village and Greenville, Miss.

At the bridge’s tollhouse south of Greenville, more than 5,000 people gathered. They came not only from Delta communities but also from Memphis, Little Rock, Jackson and New Orleans. Marvin Pope, who represented the city of Memphis that day, told those gathered at the tollhouse, “The bridge is not merely a span from one bank to another but a pathway of progress.”

Next week, almost 70 years after that bridge was dedicated, a new span will open. Dedication ceremonies are set for Monday with the bridge opening two days later for U.S. 82 traffic.The 1940 bridge has been considered a navigational hazard for years. It crosses the Mississippi River just south of a sharp bend, making it difficult for towboats to complete their turns and straighten up in time to clear the bridge. Numerous barges have rammed into the bridge through the decades.

“The Greenville Bridge has weathered the wrath of the Mississippi River and ever-increasing volumes of highway and river traffic,” states a Mississippi Department of Transportation website set up to track the progress of construction. “Since 1972, it has sustained more barge collisions than any other bridge on the Mississippi; in the 1950s, an airplane from the nearby Greenville Air Force Base crashed into the bridge. Though the 1940 Greenville Bridge remains structurally as sound as ever, the bridge is considered functionally obsolete by modern standards.”

As those who have driven across the 1940 bridge can attest, its traffic lanes are narrow and there’s no shoulder. Even a simple flat tire can force officials to close the bridge. The newbridge will have four lanes for traffic rather than two with plenty of outside shoulder space.

The bridge has been a long time coming. In 1994, Mississippi issued an engineering study that explored a fourlane crossing for U.S. 82. It outlined three alternatives. Two of them called for building new bridges and tearing down the old bridge. The third alternative called for keeping the old bridge and building a new one next to it, as had been done at Natchez, Miss.

It was determined that the new bridge should be built half a mile down the river from the 1940 bridge with the old bridge being removed.

In 1995, a cable-stayed design was chosen. By the end of 1999, studies had concluded and engineers had drawn their plans. But it would take another decade before the massive project was completed.

Interestingly, the new bridge was designed by Howard Needles Tammen & Bergendoff of Kansas City, Mo., the same firm that designed the 1940 Greenville Bridge. That firm earlier had designed bridges over the Mississippi River at Vicksburg, Miss., in 1930; Natchez, Miss., in 1937; and Cape Girardeau, Mo., in 1926.

Work on the main span began in December 2001 and wound up costing almost $110 million. Still, there was much more to be done. The Arkansas approach is 1.25 miles long and consists of a four-lane road and a four-lane bridge over the flood zone. Work began in March 2006 and cost almost $66 million. The Mississippi approach is 1.8 miles long, also consisting of a fourlane road and a four-lane bridge over the flood zone. Work began in April 2006 and cost almost $86 million.

Greenville was thriving in the 1930s, proud of its title as the Queen City of the Delta. Mayor Milton C. Smith understood that further growth was being hindered by the lack of a bridge. In 1936, a group known as the Arkansas-Mississippi-Alabama U.S. 82 Association was formed with the goal being the construction of a bridge connecting Greenville and Lake Village.

The United States was in the midst of the Great Depression and funds were limited for major public works projects. Smith and John A. Fox, secretary of the Washington County Chamber of Commerce, dedicated themselves to finding the money. They spent weeks at a time in Washington.

During the past decade, people have posted their memories of the 1940 bridge on the greenvillebridge.com website. Leslie Brown of Warren wrote in 2002, “Every time I pass over the Greenville Bridge, I feel the history and work that poured into it. This is especially true to me since my great-grandfather, Jim Bryant, painted the bridge many years ago. . . . It is a piece of history that will not be forgotten.”

Robert Nelson of Little Rock wrote in 2002, “The Greenville Bridge was fascinating to me as a boy and soon-tobe structural engineer. I had no idea of its stature among major truss bridges. I just knew that in height and span it was the most impressive bridge I had ever seen by far. It seemed incredible that we could see, from my sister’s home miles away in Lake Village, the blinking warning lights on top of it.My mother frequently would comment, ‘It looks so delicate.’ My brother-in-law, John Fish, finally replied, ‘You wouldn’t think it was so delicate if you had seen what happened to that airplane that crashed into it.’ ”

That crash occurred in 1951. The 1940 bridge has been hit from above by planes, from atop the span by cars and trucks, and from below by barges.

Next week, the old bridge will be retired after seven decades of service.

Free-lance columnist Rex Nelson is the senior vice president for government relations and public outreach at The Communications Group in Little Rock.