EAGLE POINT BRIDGE

EAGLE POINT BRIDGE. One of the last privately owned toll bridges across the MISSISSIPPI RIVER. In 1894 Joseph A. RHOMBERG organized the Dubuque and Wisconsin Bridge Company that constructed the Eagle Point Bridge in 1901 for $110,000. It stretched from Dubuque's EAGLE POINT to an area in Wisconsin formerly known as Kimball's Slough or KIMBALL'S PARK. The 1,100 foot long bridge had 1,800 feet of trestle extending into Wisconsin.

The four-ton weight limit of the bridge often terrified timid motorists who ventured over its steel-grating deck. Rhomberg had hopes of running trolley cars across it, a dream never accomplished.

Toll takers working for the Dubuque-Wisconsin Bridge Company worked twelve hour split shifts. In 1968 the State of Iowa removed the highway designation from the bridge and declared it unsafe for heavy truck traffic. Despite this, between four thousand and five thousand vehicles continued to use it daily, many drivers headed for the JOHN DEERE DUBUQUE WORKS north of the city.

When the bridge was purchased by the State of Iowa in 1979 for $769,000, part-time help was hired, and shifts ran eight hours long. The state paid overtime to the toll-takers and paid extra for working on holidays. While the bridge company paid neither of these benefits, employees usually received a Christmas bonus of several hundred dollars something not paid by the state. During the first eight months the state owned the bridge, it took in $272,000 against expenses of $66,673.

In 1982, despite suggestions that the bridge be kept open for pedestrian and bicycle traffic and an inspection showing the bridge was structurally and functionally sound, the span was torn down at a cost of $500,000. Profits from tolls were used to help pay the cost of demolition. Rumors that the owners would sue to block construction of a new bridge across the river were denied. (Photo Courtesy: http://www.dubuquepostcards.com)