Wednesday, October 19, 2016

Petit Jean River Bridges

I headed out the other weekend to visit a pair of old bridges that cross the Petit Jean River in western Arkansas.  The river begins in the Ouachita Mountains and then flows for 113 miles to the Arkansas River (near Petit Jean Mountain).   This old one-lane bridge crosses the river a few miles south of Magazine, in Logan County.

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The bridge was built in 1906, and was closed to traffic in 1998.

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Further east, the Petit Jean River passes beneath another old bridge near the city of Danville. This is an old rail bridge, that was built in 1899 and was used by the Rock Island rail line. The bridge was abandoned sometime in the 1980s.

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This bridge used to serve a rail line that stretched from Memphis to Amarillo. The bridge is in pretty bad shape, with some boards that are missing or that looked too rotten to walk on. I wasn't brave enough to go across.

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Near the tracks leading to the bridge was this old abandoned and rusty building, which was nearly covered in overgrown brush. I took some pictures before heading back towards home.

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