Historic Grand Rapids 6th Street Bridge is Scary to Cross

The famous, or should I say infamous, 6th Street Bridge of Grand Rapids. It is a bridge where, if you survive a crossing and your blood pressure finally comes down, you should get a medal for your excellent work.

Seriously, when looking at it before crossing, you say a prayer, hope it's not a death trap of a river crossing, take a deep breath and go. Whew, you made it!

But, did you know that our very own 6th Street Bridge is one of the most important historic bridges in the entire state of Michigan?

And, did you know that the 6th Street Bridge is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

Who knew?

The bridge goes all the way back to 1886 when first built, and was the first wrought iron bridge in Michigan. People thought it was weird and even scary back then. They didn't trust it because bridges were always made out of wood. But the old wooden bridge couldn't survive log jams and swift currents in the Grand.

1883 GRAND RIVER LOG JAM

Back then, the Grand River was used to float logs from loggers up north down to the mills. So, an Ohio bridge company built the new fangled contraption of a bridge for the outrageous sum of $31,000. That would be over one million dollars today, and it survived.

Time marched on and in 1975 the old, scary bridge was set to be torn down. But a group of "town folks" got together and saved the bridge. The following year it was designated as a Michigan historic site and added to the National Register.

 👇 BELOW: THE SCARIEST BRIDGES IN THE U.S. 👇

It was still a scary crossing for cars because it still had a wooden deck, so in 2012 the deck was replaced with steel supports and cement. That made it much safer.

We should be very proud our the 6th Street Bridge. It is the longest and oldest, surviving metal bridge in Michigan.

However, it's still scary to cross!