The Stillwater Lift Bridge
Near Stillwater, Minnesota
The graceful steel bridge in front of you is the Stillwater Lift Bridge, one of the last vertical lift bridges of its kind in Minnesota and a beloved symbol of the town. It opened in nineteen thirty one, carrying traffic across the Saint Croix River to the Wisconsin side at the little community of Houlton. Unlike a drawbridge that swings or tips, a vertical lift bridge raises its whole center span straight up between two tall towers, hauled skyward by cables and heavy concrete counterweights so that tall riverboats can pass underneath.
The main structure runs about one thousand fifty feet, with a lift span of roughly one hundred forty feet. For more than eighty years it was the main road link between the two states, and on summer weekends the traffic backing up to cross it was legendary. That ended on August second, two thousand seventeen, when a new highway bridge opened downstream and the old lift bridge closed to cars for good.
Rather than tear it down, engineers restored it and reopened it as part of a walking and cycling loop that carries pedestrians and bicycles across the river and back. It is now listed on the National Register of Historic Places, saved as a landmark rather than a highway.
