The Oliver Bridge is a bridge across the Saint Louis River. It was constructed in 1910 as a railway bridge by the Interstate Transfer Railway Company, a Wisconsin corporation, under special federal authorization from the

60th United States Congress The 60th United States Congress was a meeting of the legislative branch of the United States federal government, composed of the United States Senate and the United States House of Representatives. It met in Washington, DC from March 4, 1907, to M ...

. A lower deck carrying road traffic was constructed in 1917 It connects the Gary – New Duluth neighborhood in

Duluth Duluth ( ) is a Port, port city in the U.S. state of Minnesota and the county seat of St. Louis County, Minnesota, St. Louis County. Located on Lake Superior in Minnesota's Arrowhead Region, the city is a hub for cargo shipping. The population ...

Minnesota Minnesota ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the Upper Midwestern region of the United States. It is bordered by the Canadian provinces of Manitoba and Ontario to the north and east and by the U.S. states of Wisconsin to the east, Iowa to the so ...

with the village of

Oliver Oliver may refer to: Arts, entertainment and literature Books * ''Oliver the Western Engine'', volume 24 in ''The Railway Series'' by Rev. W. Awdry * ''Oliver Twist'', a novel by Charles Dickens Fictional characters * Ariadne Oliver ...

Wisconsin Wisconsin ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the Great Lakes region, Great Lakes region of the Upper Midwest of the United States. It borders Minnesota to the west, Iowa to the southwest, Illinois to the south, Lake Michigan to the east, Michig ...

. The bridge is long and is principally of

steel truss A truss bridge is a bridge whose load-bearing superstructure is composed of a truss, a structure of connected elements, usually forming triangular units. The connected elements, typically straight, may be stressed from tension (mechanics), tensio ...

construction. The upper deck carries a single track rail line and a lower deck carries the road connecting Wisconsin Highway 105 to

Minnesota State Highway 39 Minnesota State Highway 39 (MN 39) is a short highway in northeast Minnesota, which runs from its intersection with State Highway 23 (Commonwealth Avenue) in Duluth and continues east to its eastern terminus at the Wisconsin state line (at ...

. The upper deck was built to allow a

streetcar A tram (also known as a streetcar or trolley in Canada and the United States) is an urban rail transit in which vehicles, whether individual railcars or multiple-unit trains, run on tramway tracks on urban public streets; some include s ...

line to be constructed from Gary–New Duluth to south

Superior Superior may refer to: *Superior (hierarchy), something which is higher in a hierarchical structure of any kind Places * Superior (proposed U.S. state), an unsuccessful proposal for the Upper Peninsula of Michigan to form a separate state *Lak ...

connecting the Duluth and Superior streetcar systems. The line was never built and the systems were connected across the

Twin Ports The Duluth MN–WI Metropolitan Area, commonly called the Twin Ports, is a small metropolitan area centered around the cities of Duluth, Minnesota and Superior, Wisconsin. The Twin Ports are located at the western part of Lake Superior (the we ...

Harbor. On the Oliver side, a section of the bridge was built to swing, allowing passage of large vessels despite the river only being navigable for a few miles upstream of the bridge. Only one vessel is ever thought to have used this facility, a ferry excursion boat operating between the Duluth harbor and the Fond du Lac neighborhood of Duluth. The ferry service ceased in the 1930s and the swing section has not operated since. The road deck was originally a wooden deck. Modernization came in 2000 when both states' transportation departments (

WisDOT The Wisconsin Department of Transportation (WisDOT) is a governmental agency of the U.S. state of Wisconsin responsible for planning, building and maintaining the state's highways. It is also responsible for planning transportation in the sta ...

and Mn/DOT) cooperated with the

Duluth, Missabe and Iron Range Railway The Duluth, Missabe and Iron Range Railway (DM&IR) , informally known as the Missabe Road, was a railroad operating in northern Minnesota and Wisconsin that used to haul iron ore and later taconite to the Great Lakes ports of Duluth, Minnesota, D ...

to jointly fund a reconstruction of the roadway surface, which is constructed of a stronger steel with a reinforced concrete deck. A weight restriction, which was lowered to one ton as the road deck deteriorated, was then lifted. A pedestrian walkway atop the railway deck fell into disrepair and is no longer usable. The Oliver Bridge is owned by the

Canadian National Railway The Canadian National Railway Company () is a Canadian Class I freight railway headquartered in Montreal, Quebec, which serves Canada and the Midwestern and Southern United States. CN is Canada's largest railway, in terms of both revenue a ...

References

{{coord, 46, 39, 24, N, 92, 12, 7, W, type:landmark, display=title Swing bridges in the United States Road bridges in Minnesota Bridges completed in 1910 Railroad bridges in Wisconsin Railroad bridges in Minnesota Road-rail bridges in the United States Road bridges in Wisconsin Steel bridges in the United States Buildings and structures in Duluth, Minnesota Buildings and structures in Douglas County, Wisconsin