Editor,
With the building of a new, wider bridge now underway in a different location, the plans call for removing the old span.
Anyone whose heart beats faster when nearing the Buffalo River on Hwy. 7 knows that one must slow down when crossing the Pruitt Bridge. How else to get that first tantalizing glimpse? Will the level be up or will that bony shoal make the chute beneath the bridge a bumpy ride? Will the water glow with mystical blue-green translucence or will rains have washed in mud, turning the waters into high, frothy latte?
And after a day on the river, the sight and sounds of young people laughing and leaping from the rocky bluffs into a deep pool below the bridge is a last memory to savor on the ride home.
The bridge is narrow and aging, and perhaps too old for today’s heavy traffic, but it could enjoy a long life yet allowing visitors to stroll across a traffic-free walkway, and marvel from a bird’s eye perspective. For folks with disabilities, this could be one of the few opportunities to view the water from above, to linger awhile and perhaps watch paddlers passing beneath. Hikers and horseback riders would doubtless appreciate the option of crossing well away from vehicles, too.
Not every bridge needs or requires a second act, but given the appeal of our first national river, none deserves preservation more than the sweet, still graceful, Pruitt Bridge. There is a petition through change.org/p/steve-womack-save-the-historical-pruitt-bridge-from-destruction?
Lin Wellford