Thirteen, 304-foot rib arches carry State Highway 55 across the Minnesota River valley between the Fort Snelling in Hennepin County and Mendota Heights in Dakota County. When the Fort Snelling-Mendota Bridge was completed in 1926, Minnesota engineers, Walter Hall Wheeler and C.A.P. Turner took bragging rights for the the longest continuous, concrete arch bridge in the world.
Better known as the Mendota Bridge, this graceful structure is the last bridge over the muddy Minnesota River before it flows into the Mississippi. The confluence of the two is known as the “Meeting of the waters” or “Mendota” in the language of the Dakota. The bridge is about 45 feet wide with a six-foot walkway on each side and extends for about a mile, 120 feet above rivers, islands and bottom lands. The bridge was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1979 because it is one of the best places to see the skylines of Minneapolis and St. Paul at the same time.
