It is located 0.5 miles (0.80 km) down river from the original bridge, built in 1940.

It has four fans of strand steel cable connected to the top of the towers which support the deck.

[1] Both the old and new bridges are geographically mostly in Arkansas, as the state lines were determined prior to the shift west of the Mississippi River.

The bridge was located close to a sharp bend in the Mississippi; towboats and barges had difficulty making the sharp turn and regaining their course in time to avoid a collision with the bridge.

Additional studies evaluated the type of bridge to build, and by 1995 the cable-stayed bridge was chosen as the best design to fit the river and soil conditions, as well as providing sufficient clearance for river navigation.

[4] The federal government provided $110 million to begin building the main part of the bridge consisting long spans supported by cables.

[5] Construction of Arkansas' 2.5 miles (4 km) approach of highway and bridge, costing $66 million, began in March 2006; Mississippi began its 1.8 miles (2.9 km) approach in April 2006, costing almost $86 million.

[8] Hills Brothers Construction was awarded an $85.9 million contract to work on the road deck of the Mississippi approach to the bridge, the concrete footings, and the substructure and superstructure of that portion.

[10] It took sixteen years from the initial developing stage begun in 1994, until the Greenville Bridge opened to traffic on August 4, 2010.

[3] In 2011, the massive process of removing the old bridge by cutting it into small sections to be recycled was begun and was expected to be completed by September 2012.