The First Bridge over the Red River

The First Bridge over the Red River. Historic Downtown Moorhead. , The railroad bridge west of this spot marks the location of the first bridge over the Red River. In early 1872, the Northern Pacific Railway built west from Duluth and reached the river , this is where Moorhead was founded. Bridge construction began soon thereafter. On June 6, 1872, the first train crossed the Red River to North Dakota. The Northern Pacific Railway replaced this wood bridge a few years later with another wooden span. Pilings from those bridges can still be seen on the river banks below the present bridge., In 1884, the Northern Pacific Railway constructed the massive sandstone pier that supports the center of the bridge today. In the 1880s, all bridges in the Fargo-Moorhead area had to turn to allow steamboats to pass. A large turntable sat atop the stone pier. A local policeman or bridge tender would insert a steel key through a hole in the bridge deck and turn a set of gears that rotated the span on the turntable. With the bridge parallel to the river, the steamboat could pass. The bridge was then returned to the usual orientation., However, the turntable was probably used only a few dozen times. By the late 1880s, new rail lines had put the steamboats out of business. The Northern Pacific Railway removed the turning mechanism in the 1920s when they constructed the present bridge deck.