The Old Greenville Bridge - A Monument To The City's Faith

The Benjamin G. Humphreys Mississippi River Bridge - crossing from Greenville, Miss., to Chicot County, Ark. - will cease to carry traffic in late July, if things go according to plan, and demolition of the 70-year-old span will begin soon after that.

It will be replaced by a sweeping, wing-like expanse - the fourth longest cable-stayed bridge in America (see photo to left). This new bridge seems as much a work of art as a means of crossing the river. The new, 2.5-mile bridge deck, with its twin 425-foot concrete towers, is considered state-of-the-art. The Mississippi Department of Transportation (MDOT) calls the new bridge "a spectacular crossing over one of America's most storied rivers."

But the Humphreys bridge, itself, is the stuff of stories.

Named for a former confederate general and Reconstruction governor, the bridge created a swift current flow that made navigation tricky for tow boat pilots. MDOT says that the bridge has sustained more hits from barges than any other bridge on the Mississippi River. In 1950, an airplane from nearby Greenville Air Force Base (now the municipal airport) struck the bridge. Through all that, it remained stable and safe.

When I was a young reporter at the Delta Democrat-Times in the early 1970s, a couple of civic boosters told me about the origins of the bridge. Greenville, like all river cities without bridges, had a half-circle of trade before 1940. Plenty of people lived in those adjoining areas in Arkansas, and they had money to spend. But they lacked an easy way to make it to the stores on Washington Avenue, Greenville's main strip of commerce at the time (notable as the place where the Steinmart chain was born). For a long stretch of river, only ferries connected Greenville to that potential trade area in southeast Arkansas and northeast Louisiana. Without a bridge, the city would be left behind, but federal and state governments weren't interested enough in a river crossing there to put up the money.

So the city, itself, financed the bridge at a cost of $4.5 million, a hefty sum as the Depression was winding down. Greeville's city fathers issued bonds, with the idea that tolls for crossing the river would retire the debt. In fact, a toll booth was built on the Mississippi side, and I think the rough outline of its foundation is still there.

But as luck would have it, a gas company turned up with a proposal: let it use the bridge as a crossing point for its pipeline, and the company would pay a lease fee, which pretty much covered the bonded indebtedness.

Shortly, the Humphreys bridge will be history. In its time, though, it bolstered the local economy with the dollars that flowed from Arkansas and stood across the river, a monument to a city's optimism and ambition.

- Owen Taylor