The bridge spans the
Duluth Ship Canal, which was put through the miles-long
sand spit named
Minnesota Point – commonly called Park Point by locals – in 1870–1871. The natural mouth of the
Saint Louis River is about farther southeast, and is split between
Minnesota and
Wisconsin. Creating this gap in the sand spit meant that residents who lived on the new island needed to have a way to get across. Several transportation methods were tried, though they were complicated by the weather.
Ferries could work in the summer, but ice caused problems in colder months. A swinging footbridge was used, but was considered rather rickety and unsafe. In 1892, a contest was held to find a solution. The winning design came from John Low Waddell, who drew up plans for a high-rise vertical lift bridge. The city of Duluth was eager to build the bridge, which would have been about wide. However, the
War Department objected to the design, and the project was canceled before it could be built. Waddell's design went on to be built in
Chicago, Illinois, as the slightly larger South Halsted Street Bridge, which was removed in 1932. New plans were later drawn up for a structure that would ferry people from one side to the other. This type of span, known variously as an aerial transfer, ferry, or transporter bridge, was first demonstrated in
Bilbao's
Vizcaya Bridge in 1893 and in France in 1898. Duluth's bridge was inspired by the one in France, though the actual construction is quite different. The
architect was a city engineer, Thomas McGilvray. The bridge can be raised to its full height of in about a minute, and is raised about 5,000 times per year. The span is about . As ships pass, there is a customary horn-blowing sequence that is copied back. The bridge's "horn" is made up of two
Westinghouse Airbrake locomotive horns. Long-short-short is known as the Captain's Salute and is the most common of the ship signal exchanges. On November 10, the anniversary of the sinking of the with all hands in
Lake Superior, the Lift Bridge exchanges a special salute with the as it comes into Duluth Harbor. The salute is given in honor of the
Fitzgerald and her crew; the
Anderson was the last lake freighter to have contact with the
Fitzgerald before it went down, and was the first vessel on scene to search in vain for survivors. The exchange is known as the Master Salute, consisting of the horn sequence of long-long-long-short-short. The bridge was designated as a
National Historic Civil Engineering Landmark by the
American Society of Civil Engineers in 2017. ==Gallery==