Van Buren County Road 2E Bridge

The Van Buren County 2E Bridge is an open masonry substructure bridge crossing a tributary of Driver’s Creek near Scotland (Van Buren County) built under the auspices of the Works Progress Administration (WPA), a Depression-era federal relief agency.

In 1940, Van Buren County received a $117,789 grant from the Works Progress Administration to “improve and construct roads. Work includes clearing, grubbing, excavating and surfacing; moving fences, constructing and reconstructing bridges and drainage structures, and performing incidental and appurtenant work.” The construction of a bridge across a Driver’s Creek tributary on a rural Van Buren County road was almost certainly part of this project since no individual WPA project card exists for the bridge. Its designer is not known but could have been either an Arkansas Highway Commission engineer or a WPA employee.

The Van Buren County Road 2E Bridge, located just over one mile northwest of the end of Arkansas Highway 389, features three reinforced-concrete spans that collectively cover 36.0 feet. Its travel surface, covered in a gravel and asphalt mix, is 19.9 feet wide with a total width of 21.5 feet. The bridge has two piers and two stone abutments made of cut stone with concrete caps.

The Van Buren County Road 2E Bridge was listed on the National Register of Historic Places on May 5, 1995.

For additional information:
Arkansas Highway and Transportation Department, Arkansas Historic Bridge Inventory Review and Evaluation, Vol. III, undated.

Story, Kenneth. “Van Buren County Road 2E Bridge.” National Register of Historic Places registration form. On file at Arkansas Historic Preservation Program, Little Rock, Arkansas. Online at http://www.arkansaspreservation.com/National-Register-Listings/PDF/VB0005.nr.pdf (accessed December 11, 2020).

WPA Central Office Files, 1939–1942, Ala–Arkansas, Roll 2. Arkansas State Archives, Little Rock, Arkansas.

Mark K. Christ
Central Arkansas Library System