Cotter was established in 1905 as a railroad town. The area used a ferry system to cross the vast White River, with the nearest road crossing being north in Branson, Missouri. The river would rise and fall very quickly, which caused the ferry to be very unreliable. Baxter County residents wanted a bridge, but were opposed to the use of toll to pay for it. Once it became apparent that the federal road U.S. Route 62 would replace Arkansas Highway 12 through the area, bridge interest reached a peak. The federal road would bring an economic boom to the tourist-themed Ozarks that had not been developed, but the funding was still not available due to Arkansas' lack of a central road authority. The state approved the use of toll bridges in 1927, as long as they became free upon payment of the debt. Judge R.M. Ruthven concealed a damning feasibility report from the Highway Commission, which would've resulted in the bridge being built elsewhere. Twenty years later, he allegedly mailed the report to the Commission anyway. President Calvin Coolidge signed the bridge into construction on May 2, 1928, and upon approval by the War Department, the bridge was contracted to James Barney Marsh.
Construction and opening of the Cotter Bridge
The bridge was contracted to a company from Nashville, Tennessee in 1929, and they used as much local labor as possible. A cable system was used to avoid problems with the mercurial river. The company installed lights, and worked around the clock in order to prevent delays. The bridge was dedicated on November 11, 1930, but for months the residents of Cotter continued to use the free ferry system rather than pay the toll. The Highway Department even had to threaten the community with retracted funding unless the residents began using the bridge.
Today
The Cotter Bridge was once proposed to be replaced, but area residents protested, and instead a new bridge was built north of the area. U.S. Route 62 now runs on the new bridge, where the former alignment of US 62 exists today as U.S. Route 62 Business through downtown Cotter. It was Arkansas' first National Historic Civil Engineering Landmark. In 1990, it was added to the National Register of Historic Places as structure #90000518.
