Mendota Bridge


The Mendota Bridge carries Minnesota State Highways 55 and 62 over the Minnesota River between Fort Snelling and Mendota Heights. It is the final bridge over the Minnesota River before the Minnesota flows into the Mississippi River at the "Meeting of the waters" or "Mendota" in the Dakota language. Traffic on the north end of the bridge may turn onto the Fort Road Bridge to cross the Mississippi River into Saint Paul, Minnesota. The skylines of both Minneapolis and Saint Paul can be seen simultaneously from the bridge.

History

The structure was designed by C.A.P. Turner and Walter H. Wheeler. Turner also designed the Aerial Lift Bridge in Duluth, Minnesota and the Liberty Memorial Bridge between Bismarck and Mandan, North Dakota.
The bridge is dedicated to the "Gopher Gunners", 151st Field Artillery who died in World War I.
It has a length of and was the longest continuous concrete arch bridge in the world when it was constructed in 1924–1926. It consists of thirteen arches each wide. It was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1979.
Between 1940 and 1965, the bridge also carried the multiplexed designation of Highway 100.
From 1992 to 1994, the old bridge was demolished down to the arches and rebuilt from the arches up with the new wider deck two feet higher than the original.