Mile 530.7 - Greenville Bridge

John Ruskey

20 Apr 2026 � 1 min read

530.7 Greenville Bridge

The Greenville Bridge is the only bridge in the 200 miles of river between Helena and Vicksburg. This striking new concrete & steel cable-stay bridge was completed in 2010 after 19 years of planning and construction. At the time of its opening, it was the longest cable-stayed bridge over the Mississippi, and the fourth longest in North America. The old Greenville Bridge was the most dangerous bridge on the Lower Mississippi, and long enjoyed the status of being hit by more tows than any other bridge in the vast Mississippi drainage. The bridge seemed to invite disaster. There is said to be $1 million of lead buried under the bridge in the mud from a towboat wreck. In the 1950s it was struck from the air by an Air Force plane. The old bridge has been removed as a hazard to navigation and recycled. It has been removed for good reasons, but I still miss the old bridge. It was always a thrill driving across the river on its narrow roadway and feeling it sway a little with the weight of big trucks. It had more feel than the new bridge, and the views of the river were the best you could get outside of paddling a canoe or flying in an airplane. The new bridge is beautiful, monumentally so. But you can’t see the river over its tall solid concrete side rails. And that’s too bad. That’s the one experience of the river most Americans have -- is driving over the river. Now you can’t even see the river here.

Paddlers can enjoy the sensation of floating under this monolithic structure while trucks and other traffic zoom overhead on US Hwy 82 connecting Texarkana with Birmingham.

A series of underwater weirs have been installed along the Vaucluse Bendway to slow down the fast waters through this section and allow upstream tows and easier passage, at the same time provide more room for the downstream tows to position themselves for safe passage under the bridge. As such it always best at this bend to hug the left bank descending around Island 84, both for the fast water and to avoid upstream tows. If you are making landing at Sunnyside, stay mid channel as long as you can and then ferry across to Sunnyside RBD 531.5.

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