MPR’s Mark Zdechlik visits the newly re-opened Stone Arch Bridge in downtown Minneapolis. After decades of use by the railroad, the bridge has been renovated into a bicycle and pedestrian pathway. The hope is to create a safe walking/biking corridor option for those crossing Mississippi River. For the new arrivals on the historical stone architectural landmark, the views are worth the trip alone.
The Stone Arch Bridge is the only stone bridge to ever to be built across the Mississippi River.
MARK ZDECHLIK: 600 workers were paid $1.25 a day to build the Stone Arch Bridge in 1882 for James J. Hill. A group of Minneapolis industrialists convinced the railroad magnate the bridge was needed to accommodate westward growth. Betsy Doermann, secretary of the Saint Anthony Falls Heritage Board and Minnesota Historical Society employee has been active in the effort to restore the bridge transforming it from a railway to a pedestrian/bicyclist passage over the Mississippi.
BETSY DOERMANN: Until this bridge was built, there was no major bridge across this part of the Mississippi to carry railroad traffic to the west. It had been running its trains over some wooden truss bridges that were not very substantial. So this bridge was built. It was the only stone arch bridge ever built across the Mississippi. And it was built to carry hundreds of trains. I think in its heyday, it carried as many as 82 trains a day.
MARK ZDECHLIK: Doermann says the 2100-foot bridge may well have been overbuilt. Steel could have been used rather than granite mined from regional quarries and limestone taken from the bluffs along the river. But the grandiose design called by state officials at the time one of the finest stone viaducts in the world became a Minneapolis landmark.
BETSY DOERMANN: This bridge stood as an icon for the city for years and was on its postcards and on its advertising symbols for a long time. So it was something of a public statement of the importance of the city, I think.
MARK ZDECHLIK: But by 1978, the railroads no longer needed the Stone Arch Bridge. Doermann says had the structure not been named a National Historic Civil Engineering Landmark, it might have been torn down. Instead, at a cost of nearly $3 million, the old railroad bridge was restored and transformed into a crossing for people on foot and bike riders. Linda Rich lives in Crystal and works in downtown Minneapolis. After eagerly anticipating her chance to cross the bridge, Rich was not let down.
LINDA RICH: When you see it from the ground, it's so high. And it's so magnificent. It's so monumental. And so to actually be on it looking down, it's kind of seeing the world from the other side. But it's also just one of those kind of historic things in the city that you've kind of always wanted to get to be on. I've heard a lot of kids who used to sneak on here and have parties and things. And it's kind of you can see why. It's just a beautiful spot.
MARK ZDECHLIK: Howard Hickman who on this day is crossing the bridge on his bike remembers sneaking on to the Stone Arch Bridge when it was closed. Hickman says for people like him who tried to commute on bicycles, the bridge is a long awaited safe way to cross the Mississippi at downtown Minneapolis.
HOWARD HICKMAN: There's a lot of bike s in the outside of the city area. And that's more or less still recreational and in part a transportation mode. But I think the importance of this is that it's a part of an intercity bike commuting route for people who use a bicycle as an alternative means of transportation.
MARK ZDECHLIK: But the Stone Arch Bridge is far more than a way to get across the river. Planners expect as many sightseers as bikers and joggers. There is no more spectacular vantage point from which to view Saints Anthony Falls. Also from the middle of the bridge, the immediate panorama highlights Minneapolis's beginnings as a milling city. Bicyclist Howard Hickman.
HOWARD HICKMAN: It's kind of magical. I mean, you've never, no one, very few people have been in this position in space to see these things in this context. Everything is context. I mean, here we are. We see this.
To the left, we see the city towers and the falls to the right. And this wonderful wooded peninsula and little islands to the right, and just the magic and the mystery of the water. Well, for anyone that hasn't done it, they owe it to themselves to come here and just to experience it. After all, we all paid for it. So come here and make use of it.
MARK ZDECHLIK: James J. Hill's Stone Arch Bridge, once again, offering unmatched views of the Mississippi River and downtown Minneapolis these days not to train crews and their passengers but to pedestrians, joggers, and bicyclists. For the FM news station, this is Mark Zdechlik.
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