The Combination Bridge Pillar

This pier is a relic of the Combination Bridge, which opened across the Missouri River here at Sioux City in eighteen ninety six. It earned its nickname because it carried a combination of traffic all at once, foot travelers, horses, wagons, and railroad cars. The engineering was bold for its day.

The concrete piers rested on footings sunk deep into the riverbed. For decades it operated as a toll bridge, charging crossings for decades. Its structural problems eventually forced its replacement by the Veterans Memorial Bridge, leaving these pillars behind as a marker of how this river town first stitched itself to the Nebraska shore.