Distinctly Montana Magazine

66 D I S T I N C T LY M O N TA N A M A G A Z I N E • W I N T E R 2 0 2 4 - 2 5 I N THE GENTLY UNDULATING PLAINS OF NORTHEAST MONTANA, just this side of the North Dakota line, a stately structure rises up over the Missouri River, jutting above the farmland about three miles upstream of the river's confluence with the Yellowstone. The Snowden bridge is the only vertical lift bridge in Montana, and in a weird twist of irony, contributed to its own demise. It was obsolete almost before the workers tightened the last nut on its steel truss frame more than a century ago. Steamships were still a viable form of moving freight at the end of the 1900s, and as homesteaders began settling what are now Richland and Roosevelt counties, visionaries could see that the ramshackle system of ferries wouldn't be enough to serve the growing population. Enter the Great Northern Railway, which was bringing large numbers of settlers into the area. The railroad wanted to build the Montana Eastern Railway between Lewistown, Montana, and New Rockford, North Dakota, includ- ing a spur between Snowden and Fairview, opening up even more land to homesteaders. This required a pair of bridges: the Snowden bridge and its near-twin Fairview bridge which spans the Yellowstone River about 10 miles to the east. The War De- partment insisted that any bridge built on the lower section of these two major waterways would have to allow for steamships to pass, even though the rivers were navigable there for only a month or so out of the year. Chicago engineer J.A.L. Waddell designed a vertical lift bridge based on the South Halsted Street Bridge in Chicago, with a single span that could be raised high enough to allow the stern wheel steamships to pass underneath. The bridge by EDNOR THERRIAULT S n o w d e n B r i d g e : S n o w d e n B r i d g e :

• Cover