Support for White River bridge widens

A map showing the location of the White River bridges.
A map showing the location of the White River bridges.

A recently revived effort to save the old White River bridge at Clarendon and convert it into the longest pedestrian bridge in the United States still faces daunting odds, but it recently got an assist from Gov. Asa Hutchinson.

The Arkansas Highway and Transportation Department delayed its plan to demolish the bridge on U.S. 79 for six months -- until Oct. 31 -- after the governor in April asked for the deferral to allow Friends of the Historic White River Bridge "a chance to secure funding for maintenance and preservation of this historic bridge."

The nonprofit group is focused on establishing a $4 million endowment to help preserve the 83-year-old bridge. Its members are working on a master plan centered on developing the bridge and surrounding region as a place to hike, bike, watch birds and conduct water-trail tours.

Bicycling groups, led by the Arkansas Bicycling Club, are organizing rides to Clarendon from both Little Rock and Memphis on Aug. 7-9 to underscore the bridge's potential as a tourist destination. The ride between Little Rock and Clarendon, via U.S. 165 and U.S. 79, is about 75 miles.

Supporters garnered support from, among others, the Arkansas Electric Cooperatives, The Nature Conservancy and, at Hutchinson's direction, the Arkansas Department of Heritage. Meanwhile, interest in the bridge's fate has been fueled, in part, by a video that has garnered more than 131,000 views since it was posted a month ago on its Facebook page, Big White River Bridge.

"I was very impressed with the beauty of the place," said Stacy Hurst, director of the Heritage Department. "The least we could do was to see if we could help."

The bridge is part of a remote wilderness region in Monroe County and beyond that includes the White River National Wildlife Refuge, the Cache River National Wildlife Refuge and Bayou DeView, which together form one of the largest remaining natural bottomland hardwood forests in North America.

"The potential to attract tourists to this area is equal to the Buffalo River, the Ozark Mountains and Hot Springs," said Porter Briggs, a Little Rock businessman who is among the leaders of the effort to preserve the bridge.

If the bridge is saved, it would supplant the Walkway Over the Hudson State Historic Park, which spans the Hudson River in New York. At 1.28 miles long, it is the longest elevated pedestrian bridge in the world, according to the park's website.

To make that happen, however, bridge supporters would have to keep the bridge's long western approaches that go over the top of a portion of the Cache River National Wildlife Refuge, which the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service says cannot happen under a "compatibility determination" signed in 2007. The document requires the approaches to be demolished, the demolished material removed and the right of way restored to the "natural topography," including the re-establishment of native hardwoods.

The refuge, established in 1986 to protect significant wetland habitats and provide feeding and resting areas for migrating waterfowl, encompasses about 56,000 acres in Jackson, Woodruff, Monroe, and Prairie counties. It is one of the few remaining areas in the Lower Mississippi River Valley unaltered by significant channelization and drainage, according to the service, which is responsible for maintaining the refuge.

"All the infrastructure in the refuge has to come out, and the habitat has to be restored," said Keith Weaver, who is the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service project leader for the Central Arkansas National Wildlife Refuge Complex, which includes the Cache River National Wildlife Refuge.

The agency remains open to working with bridge supporters who would preserve the bridge but remove the western approaches, including the construction of a trail within the refuge that is more in keeping with the refuge's habitat, he said.

The bridge, a double-span warren truss design, opened to traffic in 1931, allowing travelers to cross the White River on U.S. 79 without a ferry. It cost $1.5 million to build, and users were charged a toll to help underwrite its cost.

The bridge "was an impressive engineering project, as well as a vital contribution to the growth not only of Clarendon and Monroe County, but also much of Eastern Arkansas," according to the National Register of Historic Places, where the bridge has been registered since 1984.

The new bridge, under construction since 2010 at a cost of $34.1 million, is being built south of the old bridge and is scheduled to be completed later this year.

With its wider lanes and shoulders, the new bridge would allow cyclists to safely cross the White River, Weaver said last week. The existing bridge is too narrow for cyclists without safety vehicles to temporarily block traffic.

But Friends of the Historic White River Bridge say the old bridge represents too much history to not rehabilitate it for future generations and at the same time develop tourism to help revitalize the region, which like much of the Arkansas Delta, is poor and losing population.

Ground zero for the effort is up the road from the bridge, at Gene's Barbeque in Brinkley. The proprietor, Gene DePriest, supports the effort. His daughter, Connie DePriest, who works in West Memphis, is president of the group. It meets at 6:30 p.m. every other Thursday, including this week.

"We want the rest of the world to see the natural beauty and resources we have in the Delta," Connie DePriest said. "We want to promote the bridge by creating a biking, walking, bird-watching and fishing recreational area for all. Coming from the Delta, I would like nothing better [than] to create economic prosperity in an area that is one of the poorest in the state."

Other members of the group include Briggs, Monroe County Sheriff Michael Neal, Holly Grove Police Chief Hollis Foster, and Clarendon Mayor Jim Stinson and his wife, Phyllis. The two brothers who began the effort to save the bridge, Johnny Moore and Jeremiah Moore, as well as their father, Burton Moore, also are members of the group.

Connie DePriest said the group's goal of raising $4 million "is very doable" because "people have a passion for this bridge, people who are from here but no longer live here. They don't want to see the bridge demolished."

She said the group wants to work with Weaver and his agency despite their stance on the project.

"We're trying to find any amicable way to go through the proper channels," she said, adding that it could include a land swap.

Johnny Moore said the group is impressive in that it reaches well beyond Clarendon to other parts of Monroe County. "It's not just Clarendon's bridge; it's the county's bridge."

The group is doing it without Moore, who recently moved his family to Colorado for a job. He helped create the website, the Facebook page video and spoke to area groups to marshal support for the bridge.

"In no way am I turning my back on the Delta," he said. "That's where my heart is. I feel I've only added to the statistics. I have a long-term plan to come back. But it's way bigger than me now."

Metro on 06/08/2015

Upcoming Events