11 Most Endangered Historic Places

Stillwater Bridge

Year Listed: 1997
Location: Stillwater, Minnesota
Threat: Poor Public Policy

Stillwater
The Stillwater Bridge lifting, circa 1998.

Credit: The National Trust for Historic Preservation

 

Significance

Spanning the St. Croix River, the Stillwater Bridge is one of the three remaining vertical-lift highway bridges built in Minnesota and Wisconsin prior to World War II. The 1931 Stillwater span is listed on the National Register of Historic Places and is considered a significant cultural resource of the St. Croix National Scenic Riverway -- a unit of the National Park System. But growth and increased traffic beginning in the 1990s led to calls for an additional bridge crossing. The National Park Service stated then that the historic bridge must be removed if a new bridge is built, citing its policy to keep the number of bridges in the Scenic Riverway constant.