Broadway Bridge historic photo

Nice story in today's Democrat-Gazette by transportation reporter Noel Oman about the need to overhaul or replace the Broadway Bridge.

In working on a follow-up story today, I wanted to include this historic photo on our website and refer to it on the air as evidence of the bridge's role in the 1957 crisis. KUAR/KLRE Gen. Manager Ben Fry helped me find the photo, but we had trouble confirming my memory that it was indeed a pic of 101st Airborne troops rolling across the Broadway Bridge into Little Rock after being sent here by President Eisenhower. It turns out they had flown into LRAFB in Jacksonville, then organized at Camp Robinson in NLR before heading south into LR and history at CHS.

I called on several people to help me confirm the bridge's connection to the photo. Dr. Johanna Miller Lewis at UALR and Tim Nutt at the UA Library Special Collections Department were especially helpful.

Larry Obsitnik, the Arkansas Gazette's chief photog at the time, took this amazing shot. Note the ironic billboard. Priceless.

Glad we could include this info in my story here.

Thanks to all who helped out.