Photograph of Big Bottom Slough Bridge — Photograph by Kennethrorie, CC BY-SA 3.0. Via Wikimedia Commons.

Big Botton Slough Bridge

Listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2004.

From the record

“The Big Bottom Slough Bridge is a historic bridge in rural eastern Independence County, Arkansas. Now closed to traffic, it formerly carried Padgett Island Road across Big Bottom Slough about 2.5 miles (4.0 km) south of Magness.”
Wikipedia article Big Bottom Slough Bridge, CC BY-SA 4.0.

One of 43 National Register listings published here for Independence County · listed in 2004 · category: Structure.

Sources: the Wikipedia article · the National Register database, National Park Service

The listing

What is counted as historic. The nomination lists 1 structure as contributing to the listing.
Address. Cty Rd. 58 (Padgett Island Rd.) approx. 2.5 mi. S. of AR 69, Magness, 72501
When was it listed? September 2004
Category. structure
Also known as. Historic Bridges of Arkansas MPS
Township. Magness township
National Register reference number. 04001042 - assigned by the National Park Service when the property was listed.

Fires near this property

38 since 1999

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal wildfire occurrence database lists 38 fires within 5 miles of Big Botton Slough Bridge between 1999 and 2020, burning about 544 acres in total. None started naturally. 14 were recorded as arson. Distance is straight-line from the map coordinates, so a fire counted here may appear on a neighbouring settlement's page as well.

Reported cause	Fires
Arson/incendiarism	14
Debris and open burning	12
Missing data/not specified/undetermined	9
Smoking	3

The most recent of them, most recent first, with the day each was reported and the service that recorded it.

Date	Cause	Size	Reported by	Name on the report
9 September 1999	Debris and open burning	50 acres	Arkansas Forestry Commission	not named
16 September 2013	Missing data/not specified/undetermined	4.0 acres	Arkansas Forestry Commission	not named
26 August 2006	Arson/incendiarism	3.0 acres	Arkansas Forestry Commission	not named
25 July 2006	Debris and open burning	5.0 acres	Arkansas Forestry Commission	not named
5 April 2003	Arson/incendiarism	6.0 acres	Arkansas Forestry Commission	not named
30 April 2001	Smoking	16 acres	Arkansas Forestry Commission	not named
3 April 2001	Missing data/not specified/undetermined	16 acres	Arkansas Forestry Commission	not named
23 April 2012	Arson/incendiarism	8.0 acres	Arkansas Forestry Commission	not named

Every fire recorded in Independence County

Mines and quarries near this property

9 within 5 miles

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal mineral resources record lists 9 workings within 5 miles of Big Botton Slough Bridge: 8 unknowns, 1 producer. 1 still produces. What was taken out: Sand and Gravel, Construction, Stone. Distance is straight-line from the map coordinates, so a quarry counted here may appear on a neighbouring settlement's page as well.

Site	Commodity	Status
Unk	Stone	Unknown
Unk	Stone	Unknown
Unk	Stone	Unknown
River Sand & Gravel Dredge	Sand and Gravel, Construction	Producer
Unk	Sand and Gravel, Construction	Unknown
Unk	Sand and Gravel, Construction	Unknown
Unk	Sand and Gravel, Construction	Unknown
Unk	Sand and Gravel, Construction	Unknown
Unk	Sand and Gravel, Construction	Unknown

Every working recorded in Independence County

Storms near this property

6 since 1996

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The National Weather Service names Magness, the town this property stands in, in 6 storm reports between 1996 and 2018: 3 hail, 3 thunderstorm wind. No death or injury is recorded in these reports. Each account below is quoted exactly as the forecast office filed it, from the NOAA Storm Events Database, and each date opens the federal record of that event.

When	Event	Place named	Harm	What the report says
July 2006	Thunderstorm Wind	Magness	-	Large tree limbs downed.
July 2001	Thunderstorm Wind	Magness	-	Thunderstorm winds blew down some trees.
April 2018	Hail	Magness	-	no account filed
June 2009	Hail	Magness	-	no account filed
August 2002	Thunderstorm Wind	Magness	-	no account filed
May 1996	Hail	Magness	-	no account filed

Every storm recorded in Independence County

Map coverage status

No historic map-sheet match is published for this property yet. That does not mean no map exists. This record needs a coordinate-quality review before it can be joined to a sheet boundary. Browse the county's mapped places while that work is pending.

Listed places nearby

6 within 8 miles

Other National Register properties close enough to walk or drive between, ordered by distance from this one. Both positions come from the same geocoding pass that matched these properties to their map sheets.

Property	Distance	Listed
Akron Cemetery	1.6 miles	2002
Hankins' Store	2.9 miles	2014
Dearing House	3.0 miles	1976
Cedar Creek Bridge	4.1 miles	1995
Hulsey Bend School	4.2 miles	1999
Thida Grove School	7.0 miles	1992

Sources for this property

National Archives record	The nomination case file for reference 04001042 in Record Group 79.
Wikipedia article	Community-written account of this property, licensed CC BY-SA.
Independence County	All 43 listed properties in this county.

Provenance

Listing record. National Park Service National Register of Historic Places, listed-properties dataset, current to 2026-05-22.
Map join. Address geocoded through the United States Census geocoder, then tested against the published boundary of every sheet in the USGS Historical Topographic Map Collection.
How this page is made. Listing fields come from federal records; map-sheet coverage is a labelled coordinate-to-boundary calculation, not a source-field claim.
Wildfire. Short, Karen C. 2022. Spatial wildfire occurrence data for the United States, 1992-2020 [FPA_FOD_20221014]. 6th Edition. Fort Collins, CO: Forest Service Research Data Archive. https://doi.org/10.2737/RDS-2013-0009.6 Collected with United States Government funding and usable without additional permissions or fees.
Mines and quarries. USGS Mineral Resources Data System (MRDS) https://mrdata.usgs.gov/mrds/ A work of the United States government, no copyright under 17 U.S.C. 105.
Storms. NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information, Storm Events Database https://www.ncei.noaa.gov/stormevents/ A work of the United States government, no copyright under 17 U.S.C. 105. Narratives are quoted verbatim from the National Weather Service report and are not edited or summarised.