Saving bridge trail-plan focus

$500,000 grant to help build LR-Spa City recreation route

Garland County Judge Rick Davis (from left), Saline County Judge Jeff Arey, state Highway Department Director Scott Bennett and U.S. Rep. French Hill, R-Ark., hold a news conference Monday in Benton to discuss a $500,000 grant to help restore the historic Old River Bridge.
Garland County Judge Rick Davis (from left), Saline County Judge Jeff Arey, state Highway Department Director Scott Bennett and U.S. Rep. French Hill, R-Ark., hold a news conference Monday in Benton to discuss a $500,000 grant to help restore the historic Old River Bridge.

BENTON -- The mass of rusted metal and twisted wood that once was the Old River Bridge in Saline County was celebrated Monday as the centerpiece of a plan for a trail connecting Little Rock and Hot Springs.

photo

Arkansas Democrat-Gazette

Graph showing the location of the old river bridge.

U.S. Rep. French Hill, R-Ark.; Saline County Judge Jeff Arey; and Scott Bennett, director of the state Highway and Transportation Department, held a news conference to explain what a $500,000 federal grant will mean for the bridge.

A contractor will move the bridge's two main sections with a crane to land, repair and manufacture lost and damaged components, and place the sections back on the six 4-foot-wide concrete pillars below the bridge, officials said. There isn't a timeline for the repairs, and the grant is not expected to cover the full cost.

Officials said the planned bike trail would be built on old Rock Island Line and Missouri Pacific railroad rights of way. The distance would total about 70 miles, said Mason Ellis, president of Bicycle Advocacy of Central Arkansas.

Mayors and county judges from Little Rock to Hot Springs have signed a memorandum of understanding on the project.

"It's good to see this progressing forward," said Rick Davis, county judge of Garland County. "Hopefully we will keep this movement going and eventually we'll see the completion of the Southwest Trail."

Officials and longtime residents said the bridge will help a new generation of Arkansans enjoy the outdoors in Saline County. The Old River Bridge, completed in 1891, closed in 1974 after a truck full of concrete blocks tried to drive over its wooden-planked bottom.

In 1953, when he was 13, the bridge and surrounding area became a second home to him, said Saline Crossing Chairman Lynn Moore, a former Benton mayor.

"The greatest playground on the face of the Earth was greater Bauxite, Arkansas," he said. "When we had to move over here, it broke my heart, because I didn't have a playground. I didn't know this. This was my playground in my teenage years.

"I still drive a '67 Chevy pickup truck, and it was mine when I drove across that bridge. So things like that are part of my history, part of my personal memories, and I'm trying to hang on to them."

Arey said the bridge played a crucial role in his childhood as well. He used to live in Haskell, south of the Saline River.

"Sometime in the early 1970s, there was a kid that lived not too far from here on the other side of the river, and he used to sneak away from his mom and dad without their permission and ride his bicycle into town with his buddies," he said. "Sorry about that, mom."

Before Interstate 30 was built, Moore said the one-lane bridge was a key part of the road to south Arkansas and Texas.

It was built on the old Southwest Trail, which was used by American Indians, Western settlers and Civil War soldiers. The bridge is on the National Register of Historic Places and the list of Arkansas' Most Endangered Historic Places.

"I've always loved our Civil War history, and this is a part of our Civil War history," Hill said.

But he's glad the bridge and the remains of the trail will be put toward a new use.

"I think all of us in central Arkansas have taken inspiration from the success of the Arkansas River Trail in Little Rock ... and we've also taken inspiration from the success of the Razorback Greenway Project up in Benton and Washington counties," he said. "Building a pedestrian recreation trail from Little Rock to the heart of Hot Springs National Park is a great long-term strategy."

Metro on 12/15/2015

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