The old Minnesota Highway 24 Bridge was a steel
girder bridge
A girder bridge is a bridge that uses girders as the means of supporting its deck. The two most common types of modern steel girder bridges are plate and box.
The term "girder" is often used interchangeably with "beam" in reference to bridge d ...
that spanned the
Mississippi River
The Mississippi River is the main stem, primary river of the largest drainage basin in the United States. It is the second-longest river in the United States, behind only the Missouri River, Missouri. From its traditional source of Lake Ita ...
between
Clearwater, Minnesota
Clearwater is a city in Stearns and Wright counties in the U.S. state of Minnesota. The population was 1,922 at the 2020 census. Most of the city lies within Wright County.
The Wright County portion of Clearwater is part of the Minneapolis&nd ...
and the east bank near
Clear Lake, Minnesota. It was designed and built in 1958 by the
Minnesota Department of Transportation
The Minnesota Department of Transportation (MnDOT, ) oversees Transportation in Minnesota, transportation by all modes including land, water, air, rail, walking and bicycling in the U.S. state of Minnesota. The Cabinet (government), cabinet-lev ...
, opening in 1960 and closing in 2017 when the new Hwy. 24 bridge opened.
The new Hwy. 24 bridge is 1,235 ft. long, made up of more than 5,000 yards of concrete and 517,000 tons of steel.
The new bridge is the third on the site after a swing-cable ferry operated from 1856 to 1930 and 1944 to 1960. A repurposed bridge was installed in 1930 but washed away in 1943 and the ferry was back in operation from 1944 to 1960.
The Highway 24 bridge crosses a river road and three spans of floodplain before actually crossing the Mississippi.
New proposed freeway
The two-lane highway 24 serves as a major route for weekend recreational traffic transferring between Interstate 94 and U.S. Highway 10. As such it is badly over capacity and congestion is predicted to worsen on weekdays as the area becomes developed. To relieve congestion, a new freeway connection has been proposed that would cross the river several miles to the east. A MN DOT study was completed in 2007 but as of January 2022 no construction is scheduled.
It is not known if the new crossing will carry the MN 24 designation or a different number, as the present highway between Clear Lake and Clearwater would undoubtedly be transferred to local jurisdiction.
See also
*
List of crossings of the Upper Mississippi River
This is a list of all current and notable former bridges or other crossings of the Upper Mississippi River, Upper Mississippi River which begins at the Mississippi River's source and extends to its confluence with the Ohio River at Cairo, Illinoi ...
References
*
Road bridges in Minnesota
Bridges over the Mississippi River
Bridges completed in 1958
Steel bridges in the United States
Girder bridges in the United States
1958 establishments in Minnesota
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