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Little Rock Walking Tour - History along the Arkansas River
Item 3 of 13

Constructed in 1924, the Main Street Bridge connects Little Rock and North Little Rock and replaced the Free Bridge which was built in 1897. Today, the Main Street Bridge is one of the six bridges in Little Rock that extend across the Arkansas River.


This undated postcard from the early 20th century shows how Little Rock's Main Street Bridge once appeared

Cloud, Sky, Water, Infrastructure

The Main Street Bridge was initially built in 1924 as a structure for vehicles but reconstructed in 1973 to accommodate a growing population and then reconstructed again in 1998. The bridge is one of the six bridges that connects the downtown areas of Little Rock to North Little Rock, an area once known as Argenta. The construction of this bridge is part of a larger history. Prior to its construction, the people of Little Rock crossed into Argenta using a wooden-floored platform reinforced by flexible steel trusses held over concrete piers.

In the 1890s, Groton Bridge Company of Groton, New York, was designated to construct a 1,670-foot-long, 24-foot-wide fixed-span bridge near this location. The precursor to today's Main Street Bridge, that structure was designed to be tall enough to allow boat traffic on the river. Known by many as the “Free Bridge” owing to the absence of a toll, that bridge was dedicated on July 5, 1897, with a ceremony attended by an estimated 10,000 to 25,000 people according to estimates in the local newspaper.

Detroit Publishing Co., Copyright Claimant, and Publisher Detroit Publishing Co. Little Rock,         

    from the Free Bridge. Arkansas Little Rock Little Rock. United States, None. [Cbetween 

    1905 and 1915] Photograph. https://www.loc.gov/item/2016815283/

Hibler, C. H. & Abbey Press. Pbl. (1902) Down in Arkansas. New York ; London ; Montreal:

     The Abbey Press. [Pdf] Retrieved from the Library of Congress,

     https://www.loc.gov/item/02020643/

Storey, Celia. Freedom festivities twice the fun: 1897, July 4th 2020. Accessed October 27th

     2020.    https://www.arkansasonline.com/news/2016/jul/04/freedom-festivities-twice-the-

     fun-1897-/.