River Confluence

When one stands on Arkansas Highway 160 bridge as it crosses the Red and Sulphur Rivers at about the place of the once Spring Bank ferry, one is looking into the past and future.

Up that fork, on the left hand, Sulphur River side, once stood a trading post — or a federal factory as it was called then.

Indians of several tribes, white soldiers, a government agent and numerous other land and life seekers were here in the years of 1817-22 when the Sulphur Fork Factory was established. Choctaw, Coushatta, Shawnee and Delaware tribes people lived here. Peacefully for the most part.

Little if anything remains of the federal factory today. Back then, the United States had established 28 such factories as a way of reaching out to those who were part of a disputed area. Spain, Mexico, Louisiana, France, England and the United States all had some influence in the west. Perhaps it would just be trading or exploring. Still, boundaries were uncertain.

One can see Native Americans trading in the mind’s eye. The factory was somewhere on the left bank of the Sulphur River as one looked northward off the bridge. Look southward and one will see the location of the Spring Bank ferry crossing. Further on, one would be looking toward the great log jam that once existed discouraging travel to Caddo Lake and New Orleans.

All this and more would be part of the memory one might consider from this bridge. After all, this had been a ferry crossing for some 150 years.

Recently, a local scholar and professor of history Dr. Dan Wimberley researched and wrote a paper about the Sulphur Fork Factory, that is, the trading post there. It seems a perfect spot for a post but the factory lasted only about seven years. Still, one’s memory has at least some discussion points as the two rivers keep rolling on.