1897 Bridge at Iverson Crossing

1897 Bridge at Iverson Crossing. . Long before bridges spanned the Big Sioux River, travelers and settlers forded the river at this location. Pioneer Ole B. Iverson, a Norwegian immigrant, homesteaded here in 1868 and "Iverson Crossing" became a common point of reference and a local landmark., In 1871 the Minnehaha County Commissioners surveyed a road along section lines and crossed the river at Iverson Crossing. Stagecoaches traveling the trail from Blue Earth, Minnesota, to Sioux Falls, Dakota Territory, regularly forded here., The first bridge here was built in 1889, but it was washed away by a calamitous flood in 1895. A second bridge was built the next year and in 1897 it, too, was destroyed by a spring flood., S. W. Hewitt and Company built this Parker style bridge in 1897. With arched walls and diagonal bracing, there are five connected structures: a main span camel-back truss, a west approach of three four-panel pony trusses, and an east approach of one three-panel pony truss. The bridge was closed in 1983., The 1897 Bridge at Iverson Crossing was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1996.