During the National Trust’s 75th anniversary year, Flash Back will highlight a place of significance to the organization’s history.

WHY THIS PLACE? Today, the circa-1920 Tenth Street Bridge (shown above in 1977) over the Missouri River in Great Falls, Montana, is a treasured local landmark. But its fate nearly turned out differently in the 1990s.

After building a new, adjacent bridge in the late ’90s, the state planned to demolish the Tenth Street Bridge. The National Trust for Historic Preservation and local advocates took the matter to court, and after months of mediation, a public-private partnership granted the city of Great Falls ownership of the concrete arch structure. The nonprofit Preservation Cascade leads ongoing maintenance and preservation. The group finished a decade-long effort to replace failing balusters with historically accurate ones in time for the bridge’s 2020 centennial. It was renamed the Arlyne Reichert Community Heritage (ARCH) Bridge in 2021 to honor Preservation Cascade’s longtime president, who was known locally as “The Bridge Lady.”

Recently, the city and a regional bank reached an agreement with a private landowner to open the bridge’s south entrance, which had long been inaccessible to those using the River’s Edge Trail. This recreational path is now connected via the ARCH Bridge.