Ft. Smith Light and Traction Company

The bridge had two sets of tracks for street cars that were spaced such that a steam train could use the two inner most rails. The tracks originally ran inside the trusses while the wagons and/or cars used platforms on the outside of the trusses. In later years cars ran inside the trusses with the platform outside abandoned. Still later cars from Main Street could access the platforms while the main route was down the inside. The viaduct across the bottom land after the 1943 flood was only two lanes. The roadway narrowed on the curve of the Ft. Smith side of the bridge.

"Following the disasterous flood of May, 1943, a levee system was installed allow the river banks around the Ft. Smith-Van Buren area. This led to a need to raise the bridge to the height of the new levee system. The bridge was raised in small increments (anyone know the size of these increments?). At the time, we lived two blocks down Jefferson Street from the end of the viaduct over the Missouri Pacific. I remember the traffic light at the top of the viaduct that controlled the single lane traffic over the wooden ramps on the Van Buren side of the bridge while it was raised. There was similar traffic lights.single lane traffic on the Ft. Smith side of the bridge." Mike Condren