Personal mission

Bridge a connection to ancestors

It’s not really a “bridge.” Parts of the bridge are indeed a bridge in the conventional sense—an elevated roadway over a wide body of water—but most of our bridge consists of a series of elevated bridge spans rising out of the bottoms of the Cache and White rivers. You can see its beauty and elegance at WhiteRiverBridge.org/videos.

A main material used in building the bridge in

1930 was hay to feed the mules that did most of the work. Mule drivers were primary workers on the bridge. The construction heritage of the bridge is another reminder that all work is noble.

Along the entire bridge, you look down into the canopy of the trees of the Big Woods, 550,000 acres of bottomland of the White and Cache rivers. It holds an indigenous black bear population that was so isolated it was never hunted to extinction. A friend when canoeing alone in the Big Woods said of his experience, “I expected at any time to see a dinosaur.”

I got involved in saving the bridge because I wanted it to continue to stand as a shrine to our past. The 2017 replacement for our beloved 1931 bridge is a bridge that is modern, safe, functional … and aesthetically barren.

Experiencing the old bridge is a way for us to communicate with our ancestors and take the measure of the society they inhabited. If we keep losing contact with that world through continuing demolition, we condemn ourselves to live in a one-dimensional world that is efficient, clean, straight … and lifeless. Yes, saving the Clarendon Bridge is personal with me.

For four years we have been working with the federal government to get it to change its mind about tearing down the bridge. I know and respect the government. I worked for the government for a few years as a lieutenant in the United States Army, serving as a rifle and tank platoon leader in the 8th Infantry Division.

I met many skilled, dedicated government servants. My brigade commander, Col. George Casey, was one of those government workers. He once chose me to lead a mission which I accomplished. He wrote me a letter of commendation which I read every month or so. He was later killed in Vietnam, a major general, the highest-ranking officer killed in that war. I had the highest regard for him, an outstanding government servant.

I have that same level of respect for Keith Weaver, the manager of the White and Cache River Refuges operated by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. And like General Casey, Keith is a dedicated, competent, and distinguished government servant who knows everything about the White and Cache refuges.

And, alas, he is my adversary in saving the bridge.

When we ordinary people think about the future, we think 30 or 40 years hence. Keith Weaver and the Fish and Wildlife Service think 100 years in the future. Keith envisions 100 years, hence the refuge cleared of the by-then-long-forgotten old bridge.

But instead of a vision of the future built upon demolishing a singular symbol of Arkansas’ history, the Friends envision a future in which both our Arkansas heritage and the conservation of the Big Woods are both carefully preserved and protected. Think about that 100-year time horizon: Imagine your grandchildren’s grandchildren in search of their very own dinosaurs on the nearly 200-year-old bridge looking down into a wildlife refuge unchanged by time and progress. Imagine also what it would mean for the vitality of the Arkansas Delta.

Our Friends group has developed a tourism plan for the entire Arkansas Delta centered on the bridge. For a copy of our plan, email me at porter@porterbriggs.com. It builds tourism through water trailing, Civil War tourism, hiking, biking, recreational flying, birding and agricultural tourism. Each of these activities have proven successful in other parts of the country with tourist destinations similar to ours. It can work in the Arkansas Delta. But the Arkansas Department of Transportation has tentatively let a contract to tear down the bridge for $11.3 million. The law allows these same funds to be used instead to restore the bridge. Repurposing the bridge would cost the government about $6.3 million less than demolition.

I am the vice president of our Friends group. I live in Little Rock. Our other directors grew up in, or live in, Monroe Country, location of Brinkley, Holly Grove and Clarendon. It’s interesting to me that our group’s president, secretary and treasurer are all women. Historic preservation is a movement led mostly by women. Women know best to honor and protect the old. And they know we can’t let the modern world diminish our identity and heritage.

It’s personal. We must preserve this bridge.