Transportation

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Entry Category: Transportation - Starting with H

Haggard Ford Swinging Bridge

aka: Bear Creek Bridge
The Haggard Ford Swinging Bridge, located on Cottonwood Road eight miles north of Harrison (Boone County), is a single-span wire cable suspension bridge anchored by concrete towers and floored with wooden planks. Spanning Bear Creek, it was constructed in 1941 with assistance from the Works Projects Administration (WPA), a Depression-era federal relief program. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places on June 30, 1995. With its rugged, hilly landscape, Boone County still presented difficulties in the 1930s for travelers and farmers seeking to bring their products to market from remote areas. The county took advantage of the Depression-era Works Progress Administration (later Works Projects Administration) after its creation in 1935 to cut or improve roads and make …

Hallie [Steamboat]

The Hallie was a shallow-draft steam packet built in the spring of 1873 to trade along the waters of the Arkansas River. It was scuttled during the Brooks-Baxter War in 1874 after the Battle of Palarm. Captain A. M. Woodruff built the Hallie in Little Rock (Pulaski County) in the spring of 1873 to provide reliable transport services on the Arkansas River, which was often difficult to traverse because of low water. He named it for the young daughter of Captain J. N. Jabine, who also commanded steamboats on the river. It made its maiden run to Fort Smith (Sebastian County) in early April, with the Arkansas Gazette reporting on April 13 that the vessel “proves to be one of …

Handywagon

The Handywagon, built in 1964 for the Arkansas Louisiana Gas Company (Arkla), was intended as an economical vehicle for use by the company’s Gaslite and domestic appliance servicers, meter readers, collectors, and meter setters. The small wagon was designed to be easily reparable and average thirty-five miles per gallon. In mid-1963, Arkla board chairman Wilton “Witt” R. Stephens asked company lawyer Raymond Thornton to design a utility vehicle that could operate economically, have a 900-pound load capacity, weigh less than a ton and a half, and be company-built. In 1964, Thornton chose Ed Handy, a company construction engineer, to collaborate with him on the project. After much research, the two men found the power train they needed in Holland. Van …

Hickman [Steamboat]

The Hickman was a steamboat that caught fire and sank on the Arkansas River on March 5, 1860; two passengers were burned to death. The Hickman was a 228-ton sidewheel paddleboat built in Cincinnati, Ohio, in 1855. Owned by the Bugher brothers of Cincinnati, the packet made regular runs between that city and Little Rock (Pulaski County). The Hickman left the wharf at Little Rock on the afternoon of March 2, 1860, bound for Cincinnati. When the vessel was around sixteen miles downriver from the capital, a fire broke out in some pine wood stored on a lower deck. “So rapid was the spread of the flames that within three minutes of the discovery of the fire, the flames had …

Highway 7/51 Bridge

aka: Arkadelphia Bridge
The Highway 7/51 Bridge crosses the Ouachita River in Arkadelphia (Clark County). The bridge was originally placed in 1933 at the Arkansas Highway 7/U.S. Highway 67 crossing of the Caddo River north of Arkadelphia. It was moved to its current position in 1960 and added to the National Register of Historic Places on February 1, 2006. It is also known as the Arkadelphia Bridge. The Ouachita River played an important role in the settlement of Arkadelphia, with the town growing along the western bank of the river. While the shallow nature of the river made most water travel impossible, locals were able to ship goods down the river in small craft. The arrival of the Cairo and Fulton Railroad in …

Highway 79 Bridge

Located in Clarendon (Monroe County), the Highway 79 Bridge spanned the White River for eighty-eight years until the structure was demolished in 2019. Constructed in 1930–1931, the bridge was added to the National Register of Historic Places on November 1, 1984. The western approaches were added to the National Register on September 28, 2015. The first settlers in the Clarendon area arrived around 1816. More people began to settle in the community, and by 1828, both a post office and a ferry across the White River opened. Located just south of the mouth of the Cache River, the city grew over the decades, although it was plagued by floods and was completely destroyed during the Civil War. After the war, …

Hunt, Johnnie Bryan “J. B.”

One of the most successful entrepreneurs in Arkansas history, Johnnie Bryan “J. B.” Hunt rose from humble beginnings to found one of America’s largest trucking firms, J. B. Hunt Transport Services. Today, his company is one of the largest employers in the state, with nearly 15,000 employees and a fleet of 9,688 trucks. The firm is consistently listed among Forbes magazine’s largest corporations. The son of sharecroppers, J. B. Hunt was born on February 28, 1927, in rural Cleburne County. He left school after the seventh grade to work at his uncle’s sawmill and eventually found other work picking cotton and selling lumber. In 1952, he married Johnelle DeBusk, and the couple went on to have two children. A year after their marriage, …