One way or another, it appears the Marsh Arch Bridge, aka Rainbow Bridge, on old Route 66 near Baxter Springs, Kansas, will be repainted before the highway’s centennial in 2026.
According to the Galena Sentinel-Times, Gearhead Curios owner Aaron Perry and Machelle Smith of the Route 66 Association of Kansas recently approached the Cherokee County Commission about grant opportunities to repaint the historic bridge.
The commission approved designating $112,500 in federal American Rescue Plan funds for maintenance on Rainbow Bridge.
Dale Helwig, the county’s economic development director, will apply for the grants on the county’s behalf.
If the county is not awarded the grants, the funds are available to repaint the bridge.
In the meantime, the state association will keep looking for funding opportunities to help with the cost of the water bead blasting and painting of the bridge.
The Marsh Arch Bridge marked its 100th anniversary in December. It predated Route 66 by about three years, but it carried the highway for many years after that.
The span was designated to the National Register of Historic Places in 1983.
The obsolete bridge was in danger of being torn down in the late 1980s and early 1990s.
But the Kansas Route 66 Association successfully lobbied to save it. A new bridge was built to the east of it to accommodate modern-day traffic. In 2005, the Route 66 Corridor Preservation Program awarded a cost-share grant to repair the bridge.
Motorists still can drive regular-size vehicles over it today.
(Image of the Marsh Arch Bridge near Baxter Springs, Kansas, by Carol Highsmith via the Library of Congress)