Lawrence County
A quarry half a mile from the middle of town
The quarry registered here works limestone with seven people and sits 0.47 miles from the centre — genuinely in the place rather than out in the county. Capital Quarries is the operator of record.
Nine of its ten restrictions belong to the state rather than to the county, which in this county is very nearly the whole story.
The bridges
A state highway sets the cap, as it does at six pits here
That is because Lawrence County posts two of the twenty-three bridges it maintains, so the county tier barely registers and the state holds what is left. The crossing that governs loads out of this pit is a state highway rated at 12.7 metric tonnes, admitting about 1.7 tonnes of stone over the eleven-tonne tare of an empty tandem dump.
Six of the fifty-four quarry networks measured across this state are capped by a state highway, more than in any other state measured, where two or fewer is the rule. It follows from the maintainer split — the state holds the largest share of structures here of anywhere measured.
Black Rock Quarry next door tells the same story from the other side: eight of its nine restrictions are the state’s too, and Capital Quarries works this one. Two pits, one county, and hardly a county sign between them.
FHWA National Bridge Inventory 2025, Arkansas file, items 21, 41, 64 and 70.
Arkansas weight law
Three axles or four decides ten thousand pounds
Those crossings are one half of the ceiling. The statute is the other, and for a tandem it closes first.
Ark. Code § 27-35-203 holds a single axle to twenty thousand pounds and two or more consecutive axles to thirty-four thousand. Where a vehicle takes the section’s axle variance, three axles may not exceed seventy thousand pounds gross and four or more may not exceed eighty thousand — ten thousand pounds settled by the axle count alone, 31.75 metric tonnes against 36.3.
A second limb reaches older equipment. Where a vehicle carries no plate attached by the manufacturer giving its axle and gross ratings, the maximum allowed on the front or steering axle is twelve thousand pounds, which turns a rating question into a statutory one on any truck old enough to have lost its plate.
Ark. Code § 27-35-203. Information, not legal advice.
Arkansas paperwork
We need a title — unless it never had one
Beyond the weight rules, the paperwork is that one sentence.
Everything after it is a fix rather than a category. A lost title has a counter replacement; where none exists there is a bonded route. Neither stops a sale.
The salvage rule brands a vehicle where it is water-damaged as the rule defines that — a limb of its own, needing no percentage — or where other damage reaches seventy per cent of average retail value in a pricing guide the Commissioner has approved. It does not apply to vehicles more than seven model years old before the year of the occurrence that caused the damage, which is most of what we buy.
Arkansas DFA administrative rule 006.05 2007-8, read alongside § 27-35-203. Information, not legal advice.
What we buy here
None of that narrows what we will look at. Dump trucks and aggregate haulers, farm trucks and grain hauls, flatbeds, tankers, rollbacks, service bodies, day cabs and road tractors, box trucks and straight trucks, and the work trucks and pickups that go with a crew.
Box trucks and straight trucks are not a Lawrence County speciality — they are everywhere. They are on the list because we buy them here too.
Whatever you drive, the offer doesn’t change. We buy all of them. Most of what turns up comes off the quarry haul that Capital Quarries works, a river-bottom farm, or a shop yard that sees neither.
We buy complete trucks. If the engine, transmission, doors, rear ends, drive shafts, wheels or anything under the hood have been removed, we can’t buy it. Small things — a missing bumper — are fine.
Straight answers
The questions we get asked in Powhatan
- Will you come out to a place this small?Yes, and often we don’t need to. We come to you and drive it away, we come to you and tow it, we buy it remotely and arrange the tow, or you drive it to us. Anywhere in Lawrence County, including the haul roads Capital Quarries uses.
- Does it have to run?No. It does have to be complete — if the engine, transmission, doors, rear ends, drive shafts, wheels or anything under the hood have been removed, we can’t buy it. Rust is not a disqualifier.
- The engine is out of it. Is that different?Yes, and that is the line. A tired engine is fine; an engine that has been pulled out and sold means we can’t buy the truck.
- What about the title?We need one unless the truck is old enough that it never had one. Lost titles have a counter replacement; where none exists there’s a bonded route. A lienholder means a payoff and a release, and that is the slow part.
- It only ever ran a few miles at a time.That is what a pit truck does, and it is not a fault. Short repeated hauls put hours on well ahead of miles and load the brakes, clutch and tipping gear rather than the driveline. Tell us both figures if the meter has them.
Why people call
Those answers matter more than the bridge ratings do, because the reasons behind the call are ordinary. Retiring. A medical that didn’t go the way it used to. A pit changing hands, or a haulage contract ending. A truck standing beside a shed since somebody stopped driving it, costing insurance every month it doesn’t turn a wheel.
Around Lawrence County and the roads Capital Quarries hauls over there is usually one waiting.
Most of those aren’t happy reasons, and we don’t treat them like they are. Somebody wants a straight answer and the truck gone by the end of the week. That’s what we’re here for.