Over on that other app that shall not be named, @soupformyfam.meatjacker.social posted this fun photo with the Stone Arch Bridge edited out of the background. But there was a bridge exactly at this spot, in fact two, before the Stone Arch was even contemplated. Time for another bridge history 🧵
1/13 The very first crossing on the entire length of the Mississippi River was built in 1855 at Hennepin Avenue, just above St Anthony Falls. A parallel railway bridge followed 12 years later.
2/13 The 2nd crossing was built in 1856 at Rock Island, Illinois, a key link on the first Transcontinental Railway. This bridge became famous after steamboat owners sued it, resulting in a landmark Supreme Court case defended by a small town lawyer named Abraham Lincoln, who won
3/13 The 3rd and 4th bridges on the Mississippi were both built in Minneapolis 1857: Upper Bridge, a wood structure at today's Plymouth Avenue above St Anthony Falls, and the Lower Bridge, pictured here in the distance crossing at the spot in question.
4/13 On June 3, 1859, a flash spring flood destroyed both the Upper and Lower Bridges. Hennepin Avenue remained the only road bridge standing, because as a suspension span - albeit a very rickety one - there were no piers in the river exposed to raging waters.
5/13 During this time Minneapolis and Saint Anthony were separate cities on the west and east sides of the river. In 1872 the two boomtowns agreed to merge, with bonds for rebuilding the Upper and Lower Bridges as publicly-owned facilities included in the merger deal.
6/13 Construction on the new Lower Bridge began with masonry piers sunk into the stone riverbed in 1873. This photo also shows vast lumber stores on the East Side, products from northern Minnesota forests being consumed in the many sawmills at St Anthony Falls.
