As
the 398-foot steel steamer Troy neared
the end of Rice's Point in the Duluth harbor, Captain Robert
Murray sounded his whistle for the Interstate Bridge: one
long, one short and one long. In the darkened pilothouse
of the 
Western
Transit Company steamer, he waited and watched for the response.
"The light from the bridge kind of blinds one at night,
and for a short time I could not see whether or not the bridge
was swinging," admitted Captain Murray the next day
to a reporter of the Duluth Evening Herald. He also admitted
to not giving much thought to it when the span didn't begin
to open after signaling his approach. "That seems to
always be the custom of the bridge," he stated.
If the bridge did not open, or was slow in responding, vessel captains were required to either check down (slow) the speed of their approach or to stop before reaching the bridge. In the early morning hours of August 11, 1906, Captain Murray did neither, and the 3,665-ton Troy rammed the partially open Interstate span on the Superior side of the harbor.
| The Interstate Bridge was a toll bridge. A price of five cents was established for pedestrians and bycycle, 15 cents per wagon. Cattle were allowed to cross for 10 cents a head. |
The collision was so violent that the 200-foot section of steel immediately collapsed into the bay. Moments later, the middle tower and the span on the Duluth side buckled and collapsed, blocking the passage for all vessel traffic.
The collision did little damage to the Troy, but the Interstate Bridge suffered substantial structural damage. It would take nearly a week for the wreckage to be completely cleared from the channel, and nearly two years to fully restore the bridge. Following the collision, 33 ships were reported to be trapped inside the upper harbor, with delays to shipping estimated at $1,000 per day per vessel.
The Interstate Bridge saga began on April 24, 1894, when the Duluth-Superior Bridge Company, a Wisconsin company authorized by Congress, was formed to construct a toll bridge over the St. Louis River. The Duluth-Superior Bridge Company was a subsidiary of the Great Northern Railway, the principal stakeholder in the company. The bridge, connecting Rice's Point on the Minnesota side with Connor's Point on the Wisconsin side, would eliminate the dependence upon waterborne ferries to move people and goods between the two cities and provide year-round access.
On April 23, 1897, the mayors from Duluth and Superior officially opened the bridge, riding a carriage over the span and then turning around. In a grandiose speech, Mayor C. S. Starkweather of Superior welcomed the new connection between his city and Duluth as the "marriage of Helen and Troy."
If Superior had been Troy, the Trojan Horse could not have made it all the way across any more than the reported farmer from Tower, Minnesota, who drove his oxen-led wagon toward Superior only to be forced back after discovering that the bridge was not completed on the Superior side of the span. In a practiced deceit, the local mayors "officially" opened the bridge on the 23rd in order to comply with the bridge's charter, knowing that the bridge was far from complete.
As the April dedication took place, the Duluth-Superior Bridge Company was embroiled in a bitter dispute with landowners on Connor's Point who were demanding more money for their land than the bridge company was willing to pay. One night in late May, under pressure to complete the project, the bridge company secretly began driving pilings for the Wisconsin approach at midnight. No one was fooled, and a violent confrontation ensued. But the tide had turned in favor of the bridge company, and the work continued unabated until the approach was completed in July.
On July 13, 1897, the two mayors met again to dedicate the $397,000 structure as an estimated crowd of 4,000 gathered to listen to the speeches. The completion of the Connor's Point approach eliminated any embarrassing moments, but crossing the bridge would now exact a payment of a different kind, for man and beast
The bridge's center span, its tour de force, was 485 feet long and touted as the longest bridge span in the United States. Constructed by the Pennsylvania Steel Company, the center span and two side spans, weighing 2,230 pounds, were built in sections and shipped by boat and railcar to Duluth for final assembly.
As the bridge entered the 20th century, the wagon and oxen traffic gradually gave way to automobiles and a dramatic increase in traffic. In 1934, efforts occurred simultaneously on both sides of the harbor to obtain federal money to replace the Interstate Bridge. The group from Superior petitioned the federal government for money to construct a tunnel to link the two cities, forsaking the idea of another bridge. In 1940, a second attempt was made by Duluth to build a new bridge, but the onset of World War II did away with any serious discussion.
In 1953, a new toll bridge was finally approved and became a reality in 1961 when the toll-free John A. Blatnik Bridge, towering nearly a hundred feet above the Interstate Bridge, opened at a cost of $21 million. The Interstate, which took less than a million to build 64 years earlier, in addition to generating $400,000 annually in tolls, was handling an estimated 8,000 cars a day at the time it was closed.
On December 21, 1962, the center span of the Interstate Bridge, once the pride of two mayors and the bane of ship captains across the lakes, was locked open, bringing to a close the useful life of the bridge.