At the Bonham-Jefferson Road crossing of the South Sulphur River, a pioneer bridge built before 1850 by landowner Brig DeSpain and his neighbors served the area's cotton trade for about 20 years by providing access to the county seat of Tarrant in Hopkins County. The land had originally been awarded to the family of Randolph DeSpain, a Texas Revolutionary soldier killed in the Goliad massacre in 1836. Built strongly of native oak and bois d'arc wood, the bridge carried heavy traffic of ox-wagons and horse-drawn vehicles on the narrow ridge called Granny's Neck, named for Mrs. Mary Sinclair, who lived nearby. The South Sulphur River once ran clear until cotton and corn became important crops and eroded soil from plowed fields muddied the water. Shortly after 1870, the year Delta County was organized, heavy rains washed out the bridge. The State of Texas then built a new bridge named for toll keeper G. W. Harper, and Hopkins and Delta counties later maintained it as a route for cotton and corn wagons between the two regions for several decades.