The Harrison times. (Harrison, Boone Co., Ark) 1876-1938, 1904-01-16
AT THE GATEWAY AGAIN.
The Progress Of Eight Months at the
First Crossing Of White River On the
White River Railroad.

a few, and had no legal or tangible
existence. Then the railroad was "a
miles away. Then we were looking
at the preliminaries of the great
work that has since been accom-
plished here.
Today the daylight is almost at
the point of bursting for the first
time through the tunnel at the
western end of the bridge, and the
bridge'piers are in and the steel
ready to place, and it is in a meas
ure to describe this work that your
correspondent again pens a letter
from Cotter. What has been done
is long-story, if fully told, with
much that would be dull and unin-
teresting and yet with both tragedy
and comedy interspersed. In the
latter days of July the tre & Was
laid to cotter and train1E az ser
train-load of materials and wTsfSfng
apparatus began to arrive.
Train-loads of sand and cement,
carloads of crushed stone and train
loads of lumber were rushed in, for
here a bridge was to be built, a tun-
mel exeavated, a division to be estab-
lished, nine and half miles of side
track to be graded and laid and it
took lots of materials to accom-
plish it. Carloads of mules and
horses, of wagons and dump-carts,
of engines and derricks, and cable
and rope until Cotter became a will
derness of possibilities requiring
brain and skill to bring from such
chaos the finished work.
First the water must be damned
back and excavations made to solid
rock upon which to build this struct-
ure. Thirteen times must this pro-
cess be repeated. Huge pumps driv-
en- continuously kept the escaping
water low enough to allow work to
go on and men in rubber boots toiled
in the water day after day to accom-
plish this. Now one and another
dragged his shaking body out of the
water, had his chill" and again
proceeded to his work. But while
this prosaic work went on other and
none the less prosaic work of nm
loading car after car of sand an9 &C.
ment was in progress!N A man, with
a number 2 shovel is prosaiS to
the majority but he nevertheless a
part of this GREAT plaA and he Iho
himself. Men toiling like slave 5 OF
Egypt move heavy machinery from
the car to its appointed place, others
shifting heavy timbers, others franz
ing and fitting-all form a part; for
the White river bridge is not a mat
ter of cut stone and mortar but is
built of concrete" man-made ma
terial composed of part Portland
cement, 3 parts sand, and 5 parts
river gravel,
A very important feature of the
construction of the concrete work
was the overhead conveying cable.
AT each end of the bridge was built
a tower 112 feet high. Swung over
the tops of these towers and with
each end fastened to dead man"
or buried weight, was huge cable
reaching / 800 feet long A smaller
endless cable pulled a traveller or
overhead car back and forth along
the wire while third cable on an
engine drum raises and lowers a
huge shive wheel with hook on the
lower end. To this hook is fastened
box or bucket filled with cement
already mixed by machinery and at
a signal from the "bell-boy" who
sits where he can command full view
of the work the engineer raises the
box, conveys it along the cable, low
ers it and again returns it to the
mixer. w.
To give some idea of the enormous
cost of building a railroad one has
but to figure on the cost of a few
small jobs and he gets lost in its
very enormity. The burying of
dead man" costs from $3.50 to
5000 and a similar expense is incur
red to move the enormous cable
across the river, while the convey
ing towers cost 81, in their con-
struction not to mention the mate
rails used.
The piers are shaped by forms
built Of timber into which the wet
concrete is poured stiff mortar.
One day sufhces to make it too solid
to yield to a mans weight and il 10