CONWAY — The restored 146-year-old Springfield-Des Arc Bridge is ready to be reassembled at its new home at Beaverfork Lake, and people can pay to get their names on the piece of history.
A Paint the Rail campaign is underway to raise $15,000. Julie Bowers, executive director of Workin’ Bridges of Grinnell,
Iowa, which oversaw the project, said the railing was needed to make it a safe pedestrian bridge.
The bowstring truss bridge didn’t have a railing originally, she said, but the new railing was fabricated to look original. It will be professionally painted a light gray with a solid urethane finish.
Bowers said the bridge railing has 42 sections and 46 posts. Through the Paint the Rail campaign, 8-foot sections, laced riveted steel with cast rosettes, are $450 for naming rights. Also, the riveted-steel posts that support the sections are $50 each for naming rights, but with last names only.
A small plaque, similar to ones on benches at Beaverfork Park, will be displayed with the donors’ names, she said. Locations are on a first-come, first-served basis. Pledges may be made by calling Bowers at (641) 260-1262 or by emailing her at jbowerz1@gmail.com.
Pledges are due by 4 p.m. Wednesday, the day of a public meeting scheduled from
4-8 p.m. at Kings Live Music, 1020 Front St. in downtown Conway. Commemorative T-shirts are being sold for $15, or $20 for XXL.
Bowers said she will update the public on the project during the event.
She also will talk about the archaeological discoveries made during the work and answer questions about the bridge. It was fabricated in 1871 by the King Bridge Manufactory & Iron Works of Iola, Kansas, a branch of the King Bridge Co. of Cleveland, and was erected in 1874.
“What we found is just so cool,” Bowers said. “The highlights are you can see both master and apprentice craftsmen in the work — the forge rubs where they pounded down the cruciforms — extruded metal. It is unique to early bridges.”
The bridge was used until 1991, when the road was relocated, and officials said the bridge has deteriorated ever since.
The Faulkner County Historical Society and the city of Conway partnered on the project to relocate the bridge from where it spanned Cadron Creek on the Faulkner-Conway County line northwest of Wooster. The bridge, which spans 146 feet, will connect the fishing pier to the Beaverfork Lake swimming area and will be visible from Arkansas 25.
Workin’ Bridges, a nonprofit organization that specializes in restoring historic bridges, received a $328,760 contract from the city of Conway to restore the bridge.
However, Jack Bell, chief of staff for the city of Conway, said the final price was about $503,000.
That included the caissons, which were not part of the original contract, Bell said, as well as the railing and approaches, and taking the bridge off the creek, getting it cleaned and putting it back.
“The railing was just more expensive than anticipated. It took longer, and it was more labor intensive, … but it’s going to be very authentic,” he said.
Bell said Bowers told the City Council, “‘You’re getting a million-dollar bridge for $500,000,’ and I believe it. It’s been very involved and just a lot of work.”
The work is being paid for with Advertising and Promotion Commission money.
Bell said Workin’ Bridges’
last estimate was that the bridge would be completed by “the middle of June, at the latest.”
The team restoring the bridge includes Nels Raynor,
president of Bach Steel in Michigan and co-founder of Workin’ Bridges, as well as Derek Pung and Lee Pung with Bach Steel; Jim Schiffer of Michigan, an engineer who set up the rigging for the crane and dismantled the bridge and will reassemble it; and Bowers.
“People keep asking when the bridge is coming back. It’s been back in that park now for a month, just in pieces,” Bowers
said, adding that the bridge will be pieced together “like an erector set.”
She said the Faulkner County Road Department did a fantastic job, making the crane pad a little bigger and providing a flat area for the bridge to be reassembled.
“This project has been so phenomenal on the level of people working together to get something done,” Bowers said.
The historical society received two grants totaling $2,366 to create the interpretive signage for the bridge. The Springfield-Des Arc Bridge was placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1988.
Senior writer Tammy Keith can be reached at (501) 327-0370 or tkeith@arkansasonline.com.