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Construction
of Jefferson County’s
Free
Bridge (1913-1915)
By
David Trulock
“Here
to Build Free Bridge” was the headline on a front-page story in the Pine
Bluff Commercial on December 20, 1913. This little headline
represented a big historic moment for Jefferson County and Pine Bluff. A bridge
to replace the ferries across the Arkansas River at Pine Bluff had been talked
about, and argued about, in Pine Bluff since the late 1880s.
A short-lived pontoon bridge was built behind
the courthouse during the Civil War by Colonel Clayton Powell’s federal troops
after the Battle of Pine Bluff in 1863, and, starting in July 1890, a pontoon
toll bridge operated for at least two years in competition with the local ferries.
High water conditions with large amounts of driftwood during the spring, and
ice floes during the winter, soon put it out of business.
One complication in Pine Bluff not faced by
other Arkansas towns on the river was that the downtown area sat at the tip of a
hairpin bend in the river, where the river’s future course was unpredictable. Nevertheless,
most of the original discussions about a bridge assumed it would be built from the
riverbank at the edge of the city’s business district somewhere near the
courthouse. After the 1908 flood, when much of this bank caved in, taking some
riverfront buildings with it (and nearly taking the courthouse), the idea of
building a bridge outside the city became more acceptable.
When plans for what eventually became the
Free Bridge were being drawn up in 1913 by the engineering firm Hedrick and
Cochrane of Kansas City, their engineers recommended against building a bridge
anywhere along the curve of the river. They instead chose a site six miles
upriver from Pine Bluff, and community leaders quickly agreed with the
recommendation. The steel truss bridge design included a railroad track down
the center, so that a future rail line going north might compete with the
established east-west routes through the city.
Since there were no roads leading to the
site, workers and construction materials were transported there by boats and
barges. The article “Here to Build Free Bridge” noted that bridge workers had
to be housed at the construction site before work could commence on the bridge,
and this required a lot of lumber:
Twenty-five bridge workmen have arrived in
Pine Bluff and are quartered at the Orton Hotel on East Second
avenue. J. A. Cole is the foreman of the construction gang.
They have been at work loading five cars of
lumber sold to the Missouri Valley Bridge and Iron Company by Arkansas Short
Leaf Lumber Company, on barges at the foot of Nebraska street. As
soon as the lumber is transported to the free bridge site, seven miles up the
river, work of erecting shanties for the bridge workers will begin.
The Pine Bluff Sand and Gravel Company has
the contract for towing the lumber up the river.
A car of construction material, such as
hoisting machinery, etc., is now en route to Pine Bluff. This, too, will be
taken to the bridge site as soon as possible. It is expected actual
construction work [on the bridge] will begin in three weeks.
(Although this article says the bridge site
was seven miles up the river, later stories about the bridge described the
distance as being six miles.)
The next story in the Commercial about
the bridge’s construction appeared on Friday, January 9, 1914. It told of a
towboat, owned by Clarence E. Philpot of Pine Bluff, that was supposed to pass
by the city the next day pushing the first barges of bridge-building machinery
upriver to the construction site. Clarence Philpot was the brother of the
Jefferson County judge, Charles M. Philpot, and was later a highway contractor
in Arkansas and Louisiana. Apparently,
he also had a contract with the bridge-building company:
The steamer Wolverine will arrive in Pine Bluff
Saturday, towing two barges loaded with construction machinery for the
Jefferson county free bridge, according to C. E. Philpott, the owner of the
boat. Mr. Philpott returned to Pine Bluff this morning to attend to pressing
business matters. He left the boat in command of Capt. Haney.
Last night the Wolverine and the two barges
were tied up at a point just below Swan Lake, about 25 miles south of Pine
Bluff. Tonight they will be within 10 or 12 miles of the local port, and
tomorrow, perhaps in the afternoon they will pass here, said Mr. Philpot.
The barges are 22 by 80 and both heavily
loaded. One bears a big derrick and engine and the other is filled with
construction material. Three other barges, which complete the fleet, are tied
up at the mouth of the Arkansas river. The largest is 34 by 140 feet. Loaded
upon it are five heavy boilers and the barge draws about 36 inches under the
load. They also will be brought here by the Wolverine as soon as the present
two are taken to their destination.
The steamer Nettie Johnson, which towed the
barges from Memphis to the mouth of the Arkansas river, did not deliver them to
Philpot until Monday night. Mr. Philpot thinks he has made excellent progress
so far, considering the weight of the barges and the stage of the river, which,
in some places is very shallow. At one or two points, he said, it was possible
to handle only one barge at a time because of the narrowness of the channel.
The chief thrill of the trip, said Mr.
Philpot, was given the crew of the Wolverine just below Cummins. The hulk of
the old steamer John Harbin, which sank about four years ago, is plainly
visible, and in passing, the barges scraped the side of the old wreck.
The Wolverine, however, as later reported in
the Pine Bluff Graphic, “went after the barges, but found the load too
much for it. One of the barges has 200 tons of material on board and draws four
feet of water.” The Graphic also noted: “Last week the citizens of Pine
Bluff planned a great celebration in honor of the arrival of the first of the
barges which would represent the first step in the actual construction of the
bridge. Every whistle in town was to open up when the boats rounded the bend,
but the celebration had to be postponed.”
As it turned out, the celebration didn’t
happen. The Commercial reported on Friday, January 16, that the first
barge to arrive at Pine Bluff with construction materials for the bridge was brought
upriver by a Pine Bluff Sand & Gravel towboat, not one owned by Clarence
Philpot:
Unheralded and without the tooting of
whistles and ringing of bells as had been planned, a barge containing
construction material for the Jefferson county free bridge was towed into the
local port this afternoon about 2:30 o’clock by the steamer “Bill,” owned by
the Pine Bluff Sand & Gravel Company, and piloted by W. E. Miller.
The steamer Wolverine with another barge in
tow arrived later. Tomorrow both barges will be taken to the free bridge site,
six miles up the river. Few people knew of the early arrival of the barges
until late this afternoon.
The steamer Wolverine succeeded in bringing
the barges within four and one-half miles of the city. Shallow water over a
wide bar prevented the master of the Wolverine from attempting to cross until
W. D. Hedrick, construction superintendent of the Missouri Valley Bridge &
Iron Company, went to the scene. By careful piloting the bar was crossed.
Three other barges are lying at the mouth of
the river. All are loaded with construction machinery. One contains a huge
derrick, while another is loaded with five boilers. It is feared they cannot be
towed here until the river rises several inches.
Immediately the barge now towed by the
Wolverine is tied up at the bridge site, the steamer will return for the others.
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Pine
Bluff Sand and Gravel’s steam-powered tug “Miller” (foreground) pushing a load
of steel to the Free Bridge construction site. The other boat is unidentified; no
pictures of the steamer “Bill” could be found.
Arkansas
Roads in 1914
During the time the bridge was being
constructed, there was no “improved” road—one made of gravel, macadam, or asphalt—being
planned to connect with it. There were many
dirt roads on both sides of the river, and during the bridge’s construction, trees
were being cut down in order to prepare usable dirt roads (usable by cars and
trucks only in dry weather) to connect with it when it opened.
In general, the road situation in Jefferson County
was like the rural road situation in all of Arkansas in 1914—lots of dirt roads
built by landowners and not many gravel or paved roads built by Road
Improvement Districts. This situation was described in detail a few years later
in a report by the United States Department of Agriculture’s Bureau of Public
Roads titled Public road mileage and revenues in Southern states, 1914:
At the close of 1914, Arkansas reported
50,743 miles of public road, of which 1,097 miles, or 2.16 percent, were
surfaced. Of the surfaced roads, 362.5 miles were plain macadam, 535
miles gravel, 175 sand clay, 21 concrete, and 4 miles were bituminous macadam.
… Quite a number of counties reported a smaller mileage of surfaced
roads than was reported for 1909. Several counties also reported
large increases in total road mileage, with the result that the total mileage
of all roads reported increased from 36,445 miles in 1909 to 50,743 miles in
1914, and that the percentage of surfaced roads shows a decrease on this
account from 2.97 in 1909 to 2.16 in 1914. In other words, if the
figures are correct, Arkansas only had 11.75 more miles of improved roads in
1914 than in 1909.
The outstanding exception to Arkansas’ bad
road situation in 1914 was Jefferson County’s well-known Dollarway, the 21
miles of concrete road referred to in the report (23.6 miles is the Arkansas
Department of Transportation figure). Construction on the Dollarway started in
November 1913 and was completed in October 1914, just as Free Bridge
construction was about to begin. The Dollarway was the Jefferson County portion
of the road from Pine Bluff to Little Rock.
Not all of this road was paved, however.
There was still a dirt or gravel section in Grant County in 1914 and 1915
(counties and property owners were responsible for financing improved roads at
that time), and repairs had to be made to it fairly often. But most travelers made
the Pine Bluff-Little Rock journey by train anyway. There were two Cotton Belt passenger
trains daily from Pine Bluff to both Memphis and Little Rock. Locally, many people still used horses, wagons,
and buggies.
The
construction site and the workers
On March 15, 1914, the Graphic reported
on the bridge workers’ shantytown on the north bank of the river, saying it was
a “little city” with a power plant, machine shop, planing mill, offices of the
supervisors, a commissary, a “very big” cement mixer, and “homes of the
laborers.” The article also noted “Everything was very clean.”
The work on the bridge proceeded remarkably
quickly, partly due to good weather conditions, and on July 10, the Graphic
ran a story on page five with the headline, “Will Finish Free Bridge Dec. 15.” (The
front page was occupied by war news from Europe, national news, and breaking local
news.) Besides this estimate for the completion date of the bridge, the story also
reported on what had been spent on construction in the previous month, and on
the fact that no accidents had occurred:
During the past month work amounting to
$85,000 was done on the Jefferson county free bridge, according the third
semi-annual statement of the directors of the [bridge] district, which was made
public yesterday. Of this amount about $50,000 went for material, thirteen
carloads of steel for the structure being received during this period. Cost of
labor amounted to $35,000.
According to the directors, who met
yesterday morning and went over the statement, the big structure will be
completed by December 15, unless something unforeseen should happen. All the
piers have been completed and work of placing the steel spans has begun. A
large force of workmen is being employed seven days a week to rush it to
completion.
During the time that the piers were being
constructed, not a single accident occurred. This, the officials say, is very
unusual, and Superintendent Greever of the Missouri Valley Bridge company,
builders of the bridge, is highly elated over this fact.
Accidents at the bridge site did happen
later, which isn’t surprising given the “rush it to completion” workload that
the approximately 200 workers had to contend with. No fatal accidents were
reported, but on August 21, one worker fell 50 feet to the ground from a pile
driver and was “brought to the city and taken to the Davis hospital in
Holderness & Company’s ambulance,” the Graphic reported the next
morning.
On September 9, on page one, the Commercial
reported on a lawsuit filed by the worker:
The Missouri Valley Bridge Company, builders
of the free bridge, today were made defendants in a $20,000 damage suit filed
by S. B. Kelly, a former employe [sic] of the company, who was injured by a
fall from a 50-foot pile-driver …
The complaint alleges through the negligence
of the defendant company the little platform on the pile driver, on which the
defendant was standing, was not securely fixed and gave way. The plaintiff
alleges he sustained injuries consisting of a broken right arm, three broken
ribs, a fractured right hip and the dislocation of his left wrist all of which
have made him a permanent cripple.
Kelly has been in the Davis hospital since
the accident up to yesterday when he was taken to his room. I. F. Long is his
attorney.
Subsequent issues of the Commercial and
the Graphic in 1914 and early 1915 don’t have any articles on the
outcome of the lawsuit. There were articles about two other injuries at the
bridge site, one involving a broken leg and the other involving two crushed
fingers. Both of these workers also sued the company, for $1,500 and $3,000
respectively. On November 14, 1914, the Graphic
reported that, at an initial hearing, the lawsuit for the crushed fingers was
withdrawn by the plaintiff due of lack of evidence. No subsequent articles
appeared about the outcome of the broken-leg lawsuit.
Workers at the time had little recourse
against companies other than lawsuits, and it wasn’t very likely the suits
would be decided in their favor. The U. S. Bureau of Labor Statistics began
publishing its Monthly Labor Review in July 1915, and in February 2016
published a centennial review on its website called “The Life of American
Workers in 1915.” The review contains a short quote regarding on-the-job safety,
taken from Harvey Green’s book The Uncertainty of Everyday Life: 1915-1945,
which says, “There was virtually no regulation, no insurance, and no
company fear of a lawsuit when someone was injured or killed.”
Citizens’
Tour and Completion of the Bridge Structure
The final controversy over the construction
of the Free Bridge involved whether the Missouri Valley Bridge and Iron Company
would build the approaches on each side. On Sunday, November 4, 1914, the Graphic
reported that the company had agreed to do the work and also was offering a
tour of the bridge to the citizens of Pine Bluff:
The Missouri Valley Bridge & Iron
company, builders of the Jefferson county free bridge, have agreed to build all
abutments and approaches to the large structure and leave the matter of payment
to arbitration after the work is completed.
The announcement that the abutments would be
built at once settles all disputes as to the early completion of the structure.
It had been rumored that the contractors would leave the site as soon as the
bridge was completed without building abutments and approaches. Neither was
included in the original contract, and will cost, it is said, about $6,000.
Every citizen of Pine Bluff is invited to
visit the free bridge on next Thursday as guests of the contractors.
Arrangements have been made by the bridge builders to have boats leave Pine
Bluff at 9 o’clock Thursday morning and return to the city about noon. One hour
will be spent at the bridge site. Officials of the bridge company will take
care of the guests and show them everything that is to be seen at the site.
Ample boats will be at the ferry landing to convey all to the site who desire
to go.
On
Thursday afternoon, after the tour, the Commercial gave this short
report:
Fully 500 people—half of them
ladies—inspected the free bridge this morning as guests of the Missouri Valley
Bridge and Iron Company, the builders. Two boats with barges conveyed them to
the bridge site. A moving picture man photographed the crowd as it
boarded the boats at the Tennessee street landing. The visitors were
placed ashore on the south side of the river, mounted the bridge platform and
walked to within one span of the north side of the river.
On November 17, an article in the Graphic
reported that the Missouri Valley Bridge and Iron Company had awarded a
contract to build the abutments at each end of bridge to Clarence Philpot. “The
work calls for an expenditure of about $5,000, and includes the filling in of
dirt on both sides—a grade of about 500 feet long on the south side and about
300 feet long on the north side. The abutments on each side will be 30 feet
wide and at the highest point not over 16 feet.” The article said the work was
expected to be completed in about 25 days.
On November 21, at a meeting of the board of
trustees of the Pine Bluff Chamber of Commerce, County Judge Charles Philpot
“made the announcement that the roadway to the free bridge had practically been
cleared and stated that blasting of stumps would begin soon.” The road was a
dirt road, but its chosen route to the bridge would be used as the foundation for
a gravel road about a year later.
In early December 1914, it appeared the July 10th
prediction that “the big structure will be completed by December 15” was about
to come true. An article on page five of
the Friday, December 11, issue of the Graphic said:
That the new free bridge will be ready for
wagon traffic about Tuesday or Wednesday of next week, was the announcement
made last evening after the return from the bridge of the members of the
commission, who made an inspection trip to the site. … The power for hoisting
the lift will be connected up as soon as the poles are erected and the wires
strung, after which the bridge will be completed in full and ready to be
formally turned over to the bridge commissioners by the Missouri Valley Bridge
& Iron company.
By the end of the year, no wagons had passed
over the bridge—possibly because of rain interfering with the work on the
approaches—and the bridge hadn’t been formally turned over to the commissioners,
but the construction on the bridge itself was complete, except for the two electric
motors needed to operate the lift span. The bridge workers would soon be
leaving the job site.
The Graphic reported on Sunday,
January 3, 1915, that “the popular manager of the Hotel Jefferson,” Walter N.
Trulock, Sr., “has the distinction of being the first taxpayer to ride across
the Jefferson county free bridge—a distinction he possesses through the
courtesy of F. E. Washburn, engineer in charge of construction, the massive
structure not yet being open to public traffic because it has not been turned
over to the bridge commission.”
Trulock was on “a trip to his farm on the
opposite side of the river yesterday” and rode across the bridge on horseback.
He “described the bridge as a magnificent structure,” the paper said, “and expressed
gratification that he was one of the free bridge ‘boosters.’” The same article noted
“The span is to be lifted today. There are 320 tons of concrete [counterweights]
on each end of this span to balance it when it is lifted.”
How the span would be lifted that day wasn’t
described, but the motors that would routinely (but not very often) perform
that job after the bridge opened had not yet arrived on the site.
The next two reports about the bridge in the
Graphic told of the exodus of bridge workers from the site and the
impending arrival of the motors for the lift span:
Pine
Bluff Graphic,
January 19, 1915, page seven.
Graphic, January 27, 1915 page
five.
While the construction of the bridge, 1,610
feet in length, took slightly less than a year to accomplish, the official
acceptance of the structure by the Jefferson County Bridge District from the
Missouri Valley Bridge and Iron Company was continually anticipated in local
news reports like the ones above, but didn’t occur until more than eight months
after the bridge itself was completed. In the meantime, however, local
travelers on horseback, in wagons, and some possibly even in Model-T Fords,
began using the bridge.
On March 29, the bridge was officially
inspected by Major Alfred Putnam of the “United States engineering department,
at Little Rock” (Army Corps of Engineers), the Graphic said, noting,
“Under the laws of the United States, such an inspection by the federal
engineer is essential.” On April 2, the Graphic quoted Major Putnam as
saying, “The bridge is one of the best in the country, and it is most certainly
the best that spans the Arkansas River.” It passed the inspection
with high marks, but heavy rains during that part of the year caused the bridge’s
newly built approaches to need “refilling and re-surfacing.”
In reference to Major
Putnam’s statement about the quality of the bridge, there were at the time eleven
bridges crossing the Arkansas River in the state. For wagons and autos, Fort
Smith and Little Rock each had a free bridge and Dardanelle had a pontoon
bridge. For trains, there were two bridges at Fort Smith, three at Little Rock,
the Rob Roy bridge in Jefferson County, and the Memphis, Helena
& Louisiana Railroad’s bridge in Desha County (now called the Yancopin bridge, closed for
many years but soon to be a part of the Delta Heritage biking trail).
The Bridge Unofficially Opens for Traffic
“That the new free
bridge is open for traffic was learned yesterday from residents of the northern
portion of the county who drove over the structure en route to Pine Bluff,” the
Graphic reported on April 10, adding, “Quite a number of vehicles drove
over the bridge yesterday, and as the news spread that the steel structure is
open, it is expected that the residents generally of the northern portion of
the county will use it when driving into Pine Bluff.”
Whether any of the
vehicles that drove over the bridge on April 9th were automobiles
isn’t stated in the news article, but nevertheless, this date can be taken as
the unofficial opening date of the bridge.
The April 10th
article also stated that there were “some stumps to be blown out of the right
of way,” and that “grading and ditching is yet to be done” on the
four-and-a-half-mile-long dirt road from the city limits to bridge.
The litany of the predicted
any-day-now release of the bridge to the commissioners was continued in the
last sentence of the article, which said: “It is understood formal delivery of
the structure to the commission will be made within the next few days.”
Movie Scenes Filmed and Big Picnic Held at Bridge Site
During the time the
Bridge commissioners were delaying the formal acceptance of the bridge, the
river itself was used on at least three occasions as a means of transporting
people to the bridge site for the purpose of large-scale entertainment.
First, on Sunday, June
6, 1915, an advertisement in the Graphic offered Pine Bluff citizens a ride on
the “palatial steel-hull steamer Ralph Hicks” (plus a barge, if needed) to the
Free Bridge and back. The excitement of ride was to experience the high-water
stage of the river. That it might be a dangerous ride was apparently part of
the appeal. (News reports from the same time period said the high water was not
damaging to the bridge’s new approaches and abutments.)
Next, a locally-produced
movie was filmed on June 30 and July 1, with a crucial scene occurring at the
Free Bridge. Filming was planned for June 29, but the weather interfered.
On the morning of June
30, the Graphic reported: “Overhanging clouds, with just an occasional
weak ray of sunshine, caused postponement yesterday afternoon of the excursion
on the steamer Lightwood to the free bridge, and also the [postponement of] taking
of the pictures of the thrilling scenes for the film-drama ‘In the Shadow of
the Pines,’ written by Mrs. E. G. Rosenberger.” That afternoon the scene at the
bridge was filmed, along with most of the other scenes. The next day, the Graphic
gave details:
During the afternoon,
the trip to the free bridge was made. First, a series of photographs was taken
showing the steamer Lightwood leaving her wharf, heavily loaded with freight
and passengers, among these latter being members of the cast of the film-drama.
At the bridge, photographs were taken of the villain and the heroine on the
bridge, her refusal of his proposal of marriage, his leap from the bridge into
the river below, and his rescue by the hero in a motorboat, with the government
dredgeboat Taber steaming by.
“The last of the
photographing will be done today,” the story continued, “and the completed
pictures are to be thrown on the screen at the Orpheo next Thursday, Friday and
Saturday.”
The other big
entertainment event at the bridge was a Chamber of Commerce picnic, held on
Tuesday, July 27. The Graphic’s story on the upcoming picnic, published July 24,
is reprinted below and on the following two pages:
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The Formal Acceptance of the Bridge
After nearly eight
months of anticipation, the Free Bridge was turned over to the Jefferson County
Bridge District by the Missouri Valley Bridge and Iron Works at a meeting on
August 3, 1915, one week after the big picnic. The next day, the Graphic reported
the transfer had occurred after “all preliminary matters” had been “thoroughly
discussed” and “the bridge commission made final payment to the contractor, by
handing over a check for something like $17,000, the balance due on the bridge,
which cost approximately $700,000.”
The story also mentioned the use of the
bridge at the time and in the future:
Although the formal transfer of the bridge
was effected only yesterday, the structure has been completed and actually in
use for some time past. Scores of farm wagons, and many automobiles, buggies
and saddle horses use the structure each day to cross the river, and it is
believed by men interested in the matter that it is only a question of a very
short time before there will be a modern pike between the city and the bridge,
and a pike from the upper end of the bridge to the county line at the north,
thus making the bridge even more valuable to the farmers of the county as well
as to the business men and residents generally of the city. Steps for the
organization of the two road districts have advanced considerably, according to
reports by interested property owners.
Plans for an
improved road from the city to the bridge, and for the creation of the
necessary Road Improvement District to finance it, were made later in August. On
October 22, starting at St. Joseph’s Catholic cemetery, work began on the 4½-mile
road, with J. P. McNulty as the contractor.
A paragraph from the Graphic’s August
4 article is a fitting end to this story about the construction of the Free
Bridge: “Representatives of the bridge company, as well as the consulting
engineers who were interested in the matter, departed for their homes in St.
Louis, Kansas City and Leavenworth last evening, having closed successfully a
big undertaking.”
A
cast iron dedication plaque from the Free Bridge. According to Jim Leslie
(Saracen’s Country, p. 62) there were two plaques, one at each end of the
bridge. This plaque is now displayed in a hallway at the Arkansas Department of
Transportation’s District 2 Headquarters on Highway 65 South in Pine Bluff. Also
located there are about twenty smaller plaques from former Arkansas bridges in
District 2, and a large plaque commemorating Jefferson County’s Dollarway. The
Quarterly thanks David Stennett, resident ARDOT construction engineer at Pine
Bluff, for informing us of the whereabouts of the Free Bridge plaque.
