History of the 340 Bridge
On Nov. 29, 2018, Bella Vistans met with Arkansas Department of Transportation and Crafton Tull staff to learn about bridge replacement projects on Arkansas Highway 340, according to the Dec. 5, 2018, Weekly Vista. One of the bridges discussed is the one across Little Sugar Creek going west out of Town Center on 340. The March 18, 2020, Weekly
Vista reported that ARDOT District 9 engineer Steve Lawrence expects contracts to go out in May of this year and that they expect the project, which also includes a new bridge over Tanyard Creek west of Sugar Creek, to take about 2.5 years. Note that he said the new bridge over Little Sugar Creek will be positioned further north than the current one.
When John Cooper Sr. opened Bella Vista Village in May 1965, he immediately began planning road construction. The November 1965 monthly issue of the Village Vista (which later became the Weekly Vista) had the headline, “New highway to link Village with Pea Ridge.” It stated, “What was once an old logging trail in the frontier days will soon become a part of the major route of Arkansas Highway 340, the new route that will link Bella Vista Village with Pea Ridge, about six miles eastward … The new highway will extend from near Hiwasse on Arkansas 279 and will intersect U.S. 71 … near the Dug Hill Church … (and) will join Arkansas 94 just outside Pea Ridge … Bella Vista Village workers are now clearing the highway right of way, cutting the caps of the taller hills, and filling the road edges on the slopes of the valleys. After the basic roadwork is completed, the Arkansas Highway Department will take over the project….”
The August 1966 Village Vista carried this headline, “New Thoroughfare Serving Village,” saying that approximately five miles of the new highway were starting to be paved on the new stretch of highway that ran east from Village Center, with the plan for it to eventually connect with Highway 94. At the time, construction also continued going west from Town Center to eventually run westward to a junction with State
Highway 279. The article stated, “The highway forms Lancashire Boulevard East and Lancashire Boulevard West where it passes through the Village.”
The present-day 340 was relocated in 1966 to cross Little Sugar Creek just south of the path of the old road. The old unpaved road had an iron truss bridge across Little Sugar Creek. (A picture of that old iron truss bridge was featured in the September 1966
Village Vista, with the caption, “Disappearing slowly from the northwest Arkansas scene are old iron truss bridges such as this one … This relic will be replaced with a new concrete model when Highway 340 crosses the stream.”)
In the old days, what is now four-lane, Highway 71 was a twolane named Highway 100 that went north through Bella Vista but, at what is now Town Center, it didn’t go through the hill cut that was made much later; instead it curved down around the west side of the hill alongside the creek, and then back to the present-day route of Highway 71 near what is now the intersection with Wellington Road.
Life-long resident of the area, Virginia Jackson Squires (19272017) was interviewed on July 24, 2012. She remembered that Highway 100 went north, down alongside the creek, with a turnoff going west across the iron truss bridge across Little Sugar Creek on what was called Tanyard Hollow Road. That road ran down alongside the creek, then turned south to go through the valley that Lake Windsor later filled, with travelers able to go on south by the Miller Church community into Bentonville or turn right to go west to Hiwasse.
By June 1967, the new 340 concrete bridge was being constructed across Little Sugar Creek. That month’s Village Vista shows a picture of the piles that had been driven for the bridge. By August, the concrete piers were being finished by contractor Forsgreen Brothers Construction Company of Ft. Smith. By September, construction was nearing completion. The deck had been poured and the concrete railings, along with the revetments (the sloping structures placed to absorb the energy of incoming water as a defense against erosion) on the bridge abutments were being constructed.
The Village Vista issue of October 1967 includes a photo of the “soon to be opened” bridge. The caption says, “All work has been completed except stone revetment of the earthwork underneath.” At that time, the old iron truss bridge was still standing but later torn down. All that is visible now is the abutment on the west side of the creek and pieces of concrete alongside the east side of the creek.
It will be interesting to see exactly how far north of the present bridge the new bridge will be located, and whether it is near the location of the original old iron truss bridge that crossed Little Sugar Creek earlier in the 1900s.