Historic American Engineering Record
Cotter Bridge (R.M. Ruthven Bridge) HAER No. AR-15
Location:
U.S. Highway 62, spanning the White River,
Cotter, Baxter County, Arkansas.
Date Of Construction:
1930
Builder:
Bateman Contracting Company, Nashville, Tennessee.
Engineer:
Marsh Engineering Company, Topeka, Kansas.
Owner:
Arkansas Highway and Transportation Department.
Use:
Vehicular Bridge
Significance:
The Cotter Bridge is the only bridge in Arkansas known to be
designed and engineered by the Marsh Engineering Company,
a significant twentieth-century bridge-building company.
Among the largest they ever designed, it is also an excellent
example of the company's patented Marsh Rainbow Arch. A
unique feature of the bridge is that it was constructed by
means of a cableway, suspended across the river, over which
all materials were transported to various parts of the structure.
The Cotter Bridge was instrumental in making accessible a
new region of the Ozarks, an important recreational area in the
United States. It became Arkansas' first National Civil
Engineering Landmark in 1986.
Historian:
Lola Bennett
Desciption:
Corinne Smith
Arkansas Historic Bridge Recording Project, X988.
These photographs are Government material and are not subject to copyright.
However, the courtesy of a credit line identifying the Historic American Engineering
Record and the photographer would be appreciated.
Photographs numbered 1 to 9 were taken by Louise Taft in July 1988.
Photographs numbered 10 to 19 are attributed to Hal Hunt, construction engineer
for the Bateman Contracting Company, and were taken during the construction of the
Cotter Bridge in 1930.
[This document is available online at http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/hhquery.html –
search for “Cotter.” It was written in 1988, and to maintain its integrity has not been
edited to reflect changes in Cotter since that time.]
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