Rating:
2 votes
Arkansas River Pontoon Bridge
Facts
- Overview
- Lost Pontoon bridge over Arkansas River in Dardanelle. Once hailed as the "Longest pontoon bridge over moving water". Carried Old Military Road, a major route between Little Rock and Fort Smith.
- Location
- Dardanelle, Yell County, Arkansas, and Pope County, Arkansas
- Status
- Demolished
- History
- At one time owned by the Dardanelle and Russellville Railroad, but no trains ever crossed it.
- Design
- Pontoon
- Dimensions
-
Total length: 2,208.0 ft. (0.4 mi.)
- Approximate latitude, longitude
- +35.22645, -93.15127 (decimal degrees)
35°13'35" N, 93°09'05" W (degrees°minutes'seconds") - Approximate UTM coordinates
- 15/486234/3898166 (zone/easting/northing)
- Quadrangle map:
- Dardanelle
- Inventory number
- BH 38335 (Bridgehunter.com ID)
Sources
- Gene McCluney - gmacfilm [at] live [dot] com
© Copyright 2002-18, James Baughn and contributors.
This page's URL is http://bridgehunter.com/ar/yell/bh38335/
This page's URL is http://bridgehunter.com/ar/yell/bh38335/
The "tee pees" are the anchor towers upstream from the pontoon bridge that had cables running to the pontoons to keep it from having a "rainbow" caused by the current.
Occasionally, when there was a flood surge, they would disassemble the pontoon bridge to keep driftwood, etc. from collecting on the upstream side of the thing and ripping it apart. The anchor towers also collected drifting debris and sometimes the large amount tore them down or apart. The Dardanelle Pontoon Bridge & Transfer Co. had a couple different steamboats (over the years)and a pile driver they used to maintain the bridge and towers and to ferry people, mail, and items of commerce across the river when the bridge was out of service.