For nearly 50 years a bronze plaque affixed on the northeast end of Wichita’s Minisa Bridge has greeted pedestrians and motorists, sharing snippets of the bridge’s history and origins for anyone crossing the Little Arkansas River.
But late last month it was stolen, leaving only a dark shadow and four bolt holes in the bridge’s beige brickwork.
Built in 1932, the Minisa Bridge stretches over the Little Arkansas River along 13th Street in Wichita’s Riverside neighborhood. When the bridge received a local historic designation in 1979, a bronze plaque was installed on the bridge’s northeast end, identifying the year it was built as well as its Zuni-tribe attributed name and translation, “Red Water at Sunset.”…