26 January #1
The logging boom of the 1800's made Stillwater an ideal choice for bridging the St. Croix
River to link Minnesota with Wisconsin. The first and several successors were timber
swing bridges, subject to damage and by ice, log jams, fire, and flood. The last of those
was built in 1910 and it was replaced in 1931 by the Waddell-Harrington steel lift bridge
shown in the photographs.
John Alexander Low Waddell (1854-1938) was one of the best-known bridge engineers in the
United States. In 1907 he formed a partnership with John Lyle Harrington (1868-1942).
Mr. Harrington was a skilled civil and mechanical engineer who focused on turning Waddell's
concepts into workable designs. Before the partnership dissolved in 1914 they designed
approximately thirty vertical lift spans for highway and railroad crossings. Afterward, both
continued to their work on bridges and Harrington's new firm, Harrington, Howard, and Ash,
and its successor Ash, Howard, Needles and Tammen became particularly well known. At least
five of the six lift bridges built between Minnesota and Wisconsin prior to World War II were
designed by Waddell and Harrington or successor firms and all were of the standard Waddell
and Harrington type. The 1931 Stillwater Bridge was the last to be completed and only
three survive. Stillwater's Historic Lift Bridge is one of twenty-three Stillwater structures
in the National Register of Historic Places.
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