BENTON — Lynn Moore wants to save a 122-year-old bridge over the Saline River and the historic lands around the structure.
To aid his cause, he will lead anyone interested in seeing the bridge to its isolated, overgrown location south of Benton on Saturday, March 12.
Moore said many people know about the site and want to preserve it, but most people have never seen the structure over the river or the area around it.
“There is no lack of interest in the bridge, but I want to give people the personal image of the bridge,” he said. “They can see a photo, but it is not like being there. I want people to stomp around on the dirt there and touch the bridge.”
As president of the Saline Crossing Regional Park and Recreation Area Inc., a nonprofit organization looking to preserve the bridge and to build a park at the location on both sides of the Saline River, Moore said construction started on the metal structure over the Saline in 1889 and was known as the Iron Bridge, the Wagon Bridge or the River Street Bridge before the street connection from the city was closed.
The old bridge crosses the water at a spot where the river could be easily forded, Moore said. Archeologists speculate that Hernando DeSoto and his Spanish soldiers may have crossed the Saline there in 1541 as they explored what would become the Southern states.
After the area became American territory following the Louisiana Purchase, the site was a popular crossing and could have been part of the trail that carried soldiers and settlers south and west known as the Military Road or Stagecoach Road.
“This old briar patch is where Benton began. It was the birthplace of the entire area,” Moore said. “The first American settler, William Lockert, brought his family to the crossing in 1815, and he might have operated a ferry.”
The Arkansas Territorial Legislature gave Lockert the right to build a toll bridge in 1831.
“It was on the route to Texas,” Moore said. “People would come up the Arkansas River to Little Rock and then take the road to the west.”
The iron bridge that remains may have carried some early automobile traffic, but it was not made for the advancements of larger cars and trucks,” Moore said.
U.S. 67 did not follow River Street and its bridge in the 1940s. No longer used, the bridge encountered years of vandalism.
When Moore was mayor of Benton, (1999-2002) an engineering study of the bridge was made with the idea of restoring the structure for auto traffic, but nothing came of the concept.
The Saline Crossing Regional Park and Recreation Area Inc., which was begun by Moore and some friends, has a mission of saving the bridge and the area around it before the structure crashes in ruins into the river.
“We’re in the beginning stages of a master plan,” Moore said.
Some of the ideas going into that plan include restoring the bridge for pedestrian, bicycle and even equestrian traffic and tying the bridge into a system of trails.
At the site of the original Lockert settlement, there could be a visitors center, a museum and an educational center that would become what Moore called an “outdoor living classroom.”
In addition, river access would allow for a boat ramp near the bridge. There might also be a spot for activities such as paddle boats and tubing along the river, Moore said.
“The Saline Rover is an economic generator that has not been cranked up,” Moore said. “We need to get the ball rolling with a professional master plan.”
Moore stressed that tourism is the best plan for the future of Benton and Saline County.
“The Saline River is a great resource for outdoor recreation and tourism,” he said. “Alcoa and Reynolds are not here anymore, and we’re not getting a Toyota plant built here, so we have to work with what we have got.”
Moore has said before that his plan for the site is an ambitious one, but it is possible. Moore said he would like to see something “tangible” at the site by 2015, the bicentennial of the Lockert settlement.
“I am hoping that with the growing interest and with the full-fledged 501(c) organization, we can receive donations,” he said.
The property along the site includes both city land and private property.
“I have talked with all the property owners, and we are leaving the doors open so families who own the property can make a donation,” he said.
The river-crossing concept would also blend in with the proposed development of a community center and other ideas at the old Saline County Fairgrounds suggested by the Benton Advertising and Promotion Commission, Moore said.
“If the A&P can develop property where it is talking about, it could be a domino effort to reach something like the River Market in Little Rock.”
He said it might be hard to envision the wooded site at the river, as it is today, becoming a busy gathering place.
“I remember when everyone thought the River Market plan was impossible to make a reality,” Moore said. “This is the same song, just another verse.”
Moore has mentioned the river-crossing plan to A&P commissioners but has not made an application for assistance.
Several members of the commission have said they have no objection to the river-crossing organization’s plan, but it is not part of the commission’s focus in their current plan for a Benton community center.
Moore’s trip to the old-bridge site will begin at 10 a.m. on Saturday, March 12, from the Gene Moss Building at Tyndall Park, 913 E. Sevier St. in Benton. There will be a short drive to the site. If the weather is bad, the event will be rescheduled for the following Saturday, March 19. For more information, call (501) 778-8661.