The crossings, whole

1834 — PRESENT

Before the first bridge there was a ferry, and the marker record gives the crossing's whole early course in four structures: The Indiana Historical Bureau's First Bridge marker (71.1968.2), which stood at the southwest corner of Main and Mishawaka Avenue, records that a ferry worked the crossing from 1834; that the first bridge was built in 1837 at a cost of $2,499, paid by popular subscription; that it was replaced by "the red, covered bridge in 1846," by an iron truss bridge in 1874, "and the present concrete bridge in 1907." The city's commissioned history tells the same course with two of its dates standing one year off the marker's, and both are printed here as they stand: De Kever has the first bridge damaged by ice — the river's own hand in the succession — and the 300-foot red covered bridge standing "from 1847 until an iron bridge was built in 1874," and he dates the concrete Main Street Bridge's completion to 1908. The Story of Mishawaka section follows De Kever's years; the marker's years stand against them in the open, a one-year seam in each case that the sources reached do not close.

The twentieth-century crossings came in a building burst the city history counts as three bridges in eleven years. The Logan Street Bridge was built of wood in 1902; it lasted only a few years, was closed in 1908, partially collapsed in 1911, and was replaced in 1913 by the concrete closed-spandrel arch that still carries Logan Street — officially the William S. Moore PE Memorial Bridge, St. Joseph County Bridge 205, designed by W. S. Moore and built by C. L. Copp, and rehabilitated in 2006–2007. The bridge record carries a conflict inside itself here: the National Bridge Inventory gives the present Logan Street bridge's year as 1925, while the rehabilitation plaque on the bridge states 1913; both are printed, and the plaque stands on the structure it dates. The Cedar Street Bridge opened in 1904 — already enough of a landmark five years later that the 1909 centennial pageant's canoe procession came down the river to meet the city's officials at its foot. Upriver and down, the HistoricBridges inventory of the St. Joseph River crossings dates the Mishawaka Avenue bridge to 1924 and the Ash Road (State Road 219) bridge, on the Elkhart County line, to 1929. West of Main Street, the riverfront's modern crossings are the Riverwalk's own: the cable-stay footbridge of 2008 and the footbridges to Kamm Island, carried in the Riverwalk entry below.

Sources:

1. Indiana Historical Bureau, marker 71.1968.2, "First Bridge" — the ferry from 1834; the 1837 bridge at $2,499 by subscription; the covered bridge dated 1846; the iron truss of 1874; the concrete bridge dated 1907.
2. Peter J. De Kever, Mishawaka: A History — the ice damage; the covered bridge standing from 1847; the Main Street concrete bridge completed 1908; the Logan Street Bridge's course 1902–1913; the Cedar Street Bridge opened 1904.
3. HistoricBridges.org, St. Joseph River crossing inventory — the Logan Street (W. S. Moore Memorial) bridge: 1913 arch, engineer W. S. Moore, builder C. L. Copp, rehabilitated 2006–2007, with the National Bridge Inventory's 1925 year noted against the plaque's 1913; the Mishawaka Avenue bridge (1924); the Ash Road bridge (1929).