Illinois River Bridge at Phillips Ford

Listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2009.

From the record

“The Illinois River Bridge at Phillips Ford is a historic bridge in rural northern Washington County, Arkansas. It is a double-span closed-spandrel concrete arch bridge built in 1926 by the Luten Bridge Company, and it carries County Road 848 across the Illinois River in the Ozark National Forest south of U.S.”
Wikipedia article Illinois River Bridge at Phillips Ford, CC BY-SA 4.0.

One of 160 National Register listings published here for Washington County · listed in 2009 · 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. Co. Rd. 848 over the Illinois River, Savoy, 72704
When was it listed? January 2009
Category. structure
Also known as. Historic Bridges of Arkansas MPS
Township. Harmon township
National Register reference number. 08001344 - assigned by the National Park Service when the property was listed.

Fires near this property

69 since 1992

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal wildfire occurrence database lists 69 fires within 5 miles of Illinois River Bridge at Phillips Ford between 1992 and 2020, burning about 729 acres in total. 1 started naturally. 38 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	38
Missing data/not specified/undetermined	16
Debris and open burning	6
Smoking	4
Recreation and ceremony	2
Fireworks	1
Equipment and vehicle use	1
Natural	1

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
4 September 1998	Missing data/not specified/undetermined	2.0 acres	Arkansas Forestry Commission	not named
19 September 2000	Missing data/not specified/undetermined	3.0 acres	Arkansas Forestry Commission	not named
11 September 1998	Fireworks	1.0 acres	Ozark-St. Francis National Forests	SHOOTING RANGE
10 September 2011	Smoking	5.0 acres	Arkansas Forestry Commission	not named
10 September 2011	Arson/incendiarism	1.5 acres	Ozark-St. Francis National Forests	TOWER RD. FIRE
7 August 2012	Smoking	8.0 acres	Arkansas Forestry Commission	not named
30 August 1999	Smoking	under an acre	Ozark-St. Francis National Forests	WEDINGTON REC
5 July 2014	Missing data/not specified/undetermined	under an acre	Ozark-St. Francis National Forests	WEDINGTON LAKE

Every fire recorded in Washington County

Mines and quarries near this property

3 within 5 miles

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal mineral resources record lists 3 workings within 5 miles of Illinois River Bridge at Phillips Ford: 3 past producers. None of them still produces. What was taken out: Sand and Gravel, Construction. 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	Sand and Gravel, Construction	Past Producer
Unk	Sand and Gravel, Construction	Past Producer
Unk	Sand and Gravel, Construction	Past Producer

Every working recorded in Washington County

Storms near this property

16 since 2001

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The National Weather Service names Savoy, the town this property stands in, in 16 storm reports between 2001 and 2025: 8 hail, 3 thunderstorm wind, 2 tornado, 2 flood. 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
June 2009	Hail	Savoy	$100,000	Tennis ball size hail damaged homes and automobiles in Wedington Woods.
April 2025	Thunderstorm Wind	Savoy	$25,000	Strong thunderstorm wind damaged chicken houses and snapped large tree limbs.
May 2022	Hail	Savoy	$20,000	Hail up to ping pong ball size damaged vehicles and homes.
May 2022	Flood	Savoy	-	Portions of Highway 16 were flooded, and a vehicle was stranded at the bridge over the Illinois River.
May 2019	Tornado (EF0)	Savoy	-	A tornado snapped large tree limbs. Based on this damage, maximum estimated wind in the tornado was 80 to 85 mph.
December 2015	Flood	Savoy	-	Highway 16 west of Fayetteville was closed due to flooding.
May 2015	Flash Flood	Savoy	-	The Illinois River near Savoy was reported out of its banks.
May 2013	Thunderstorm Wind	Savoy	-	Several large trees were blown down by strong thunderstorm winds.
May 2010	Tornado (EF1)	Savoy	-	A KNWA meteorologist reported that a tornado uprooted trees and snapped large limbs. The maximum wind speed in the tornado based on this damage was about 90 mph.
May 2025	Hail	Savoy	-	no account filed
March 2017	Hail	Savoy	-	no account filed
March 2015	Hail	Savoy	-	no account filed
April 2011	Hail	Savoy	-	no account filed
June 2009	Hail	Savoy	-	no account filed
October 2007	Thunderstorm Wind	Savoy	-	no account filed
May 2001	Hail	Savoy	-	no account filed

Every storm recorded in Washington 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
Lake Wedington Historic District	3.3 miles	1995
Willis Noll House	6.7 miles	2005
Bariola Farm	7.0 miles
St. Joseph Catholic Church	7.5 miles	2006
Tontitown School Building	7.5 miles	1992
County Road 6 Bridge	8.0 miles	2004

Sources for this property

National Archives record	The nomination case file for reference 08001344 in Record Group 79.
Wikipedia article	Community-written account of this property, licensed CC BY-SA.
Washington County	All 160 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.