St Louis, MO

The Old Chain of Rocks Bridge

The Chain of Rocks Bridge opened in 1929 and saw its last vehicle traffic in 1968 when Interstate 270, north of the bridge, was completed. Built at a cost of $2,000,000 it is 5,353 feet long, 24 feet wide, and has a 22 degree angle turn in its span - a constant hazard for drivers.

For decades, motorists on old Route 66 paid a toll to cross the Mississippi on the bridge. Thanks to ongoing renovations and improvements, it now enjoys new life as one of the longest exclusively bicycle-pedestrian bridges in the world. A number of events are held on the bridge each year.

The bridge connects Missouri (the Riverfront Trail) and Illinois (The Confluence Bikeway) at a particularly scenic stretch of the river, overlooking the natural "chain of rocks" from which it derives its name. The architecturally significant water intake towers just south of the bridge helped produce "water of diamond transparency" for the 1904 World's Fair.