At least two to three times a day, a freight train travels at 10 mph across the single-track railroad bridge that spans the Des Moines River and a neighborhood 182 feet below. The bridge has carried hundreds of thousands of trains since it was constructed in 1902-03 at a cost of $450,000 — equivalent to $11.4 million in today’s dollars.

Built by the Mason City & Fort Dodge Railway (which was then operated by the Chicago Great Western Railway) and now owned by the Union Pacific Railroad, the bridge is one of the highest and longest in the country. In Iowa, it is second only in height to the Kate Shelley High Bridge three miles west of Boone — which is a year older, 3 feet higher, but now retired when it was replaced in 2009 by a concrete bridge right next to it.

No retirement is in sight for this bridge.

“In fact, we replaced all the ties on it in 2020. Yes, that’s correct. We replaced all the ties on it in 2020,” said Robynn Tysver, a spokesperson for Union Pacific at its Omaha headquarters.

She said the High Bridge and all Union Pacific bridges are inspected twice a year.

Don Heddinger, a Fort Dodge railroad man for 44 years until his retirement from Union Pacific in 2014, said he traversed the Fort Dodge High Bridge thousands of times during his career.

“What has always impressed me about the High Bridge is that the one-half-mile of steel that’s still standing across that river valley today was forged in factories that were built in the late 1800s,” he said. “They made things to last and it was made in the good ol’ U S of A.

“Think of all the violent storms that thing has withstood and the thousands of trains and the millions of tons of cargo that has crossed it, and she’s still standing just as strong as it was 120 years ago. I bet most people never give that bridge a second glance, if they even look at it once, as they drive across the hospital bridge, but I do.”

The bridge’s beginnings trace to 1886 when the Mason City and Fort Dodge Railway began construction on a 72-mile line between the two cities. The route served as a diagonal railroad in an area otherwise dominated by a gridline rail network. It was expanded in 1903 when another 133 miles was built towards Council Bluffs. The line served as the quickest way between Mason City and Council Bluffs.

The Mason City & Fort Dodge Line was merged into the Chicago Great Western Railway in 1941. The rail line’s last passenger train ran from Omaha, through Fort Dodge, to St. Paul, Minnesota., on Sept. 29, 1965. Three years later, the Chicago Great Western Railway merged into the Chicago & North Western Railway on July 1, 1968. The Chicago and North Western Railway was acquired by the Union Pacific Railroad on June 23, 1995.

The rationale for construction of the High Bridge was to avoid the large grades that would otherwise be required in Fort Dodge.

Construction began in 1902 with the American Bridge Co. of New York in charge of building the superstructure, Bates and Rogers Construction Co. of Chicago the substructure, Kelly-Atkinson Construction Co of Chicago with its erection, and H.C. Keith serving as chief engineer.

“Not a single life lost” in the construction process, according to a railroad historical brochure distributed to the public. “Most serious accident was a smashed finger.”

The bridge was considered a significant engineering achievement. The west approach consists of 11 spans, resting on large steel towers, and is an uphill climb. The east approach consists of 19 spans of the same design.

The four main spans of the bridge are massive Baltimore Deck Trusses, significant as a relatively uncommon truss design and aesthetically pleasing due to the complex geometry. These trusses consist of seven panels each, with pinned connections. The system of main spans is flanked on each end by an extremely long series of deck plate girder spans supported by steel bents of a design that are sometimes called “towers” on similar large high-level railroad bridges.

Another unique piece of the bridge is the towers on which the trusses sit. These towers rest on large stone piers below. The approach towers rest on simple stone bases.

Heddinger said that during World War II, Great Western ran passenger trains across the bridge on a daily basis between Chicago and Omaha, and also ran military troop trains as needed.

Only freight trains cross the bridge now — carrying corn, soybeans, ethanol and dried distiller grains — but Heddinger recalls the Union Pacific program called Operation Life Saver, begun in the early 1970s to promote rail safety, especially at rail crossings, that included passenger cars.

“There were fancy passenger cars and we would give free rides to the public to promote how important it is to be alert at crossings,” he said. “We would stop in the middle of the bridge to give passengers a view from both sides of the train.”

That view if you look downward is not recommended for those with a fear of heights. While Heddinger never knew of any engineers who refused to take a train over the High Bridge, he said “I knew one, back in the early ’70s, who was genuinely scared of it and never looked out the windows of the locomotive.”

Any portfolio of photos of Fort Dodge is sure to include the High Bridge. Mention it to most anyone who has lived in the city and they are likely to have a story to tell. Recalled Fort Dodge native Dennis Spurlin, who now lives in Madison, Wisconsin:

“My dad (Ed Spurlin) was supervisor of the Fort Dodge Sanitation Department for many years in the ’50s, ’60s and ’70s,” Spurlin said. “He would go under the bridge frequently when he went to the landfill, which was out in Coleman District. One morning he was really shaken when he looked up and a body was hanging about 25 feet below the bridge in the middle of 11th Avenue Southwest. He came home and called the police (no cell phones in those days). The police raced to the bridge to retrieve the body and investigate the crime. They found that someone had ‘hung’ a life-sized dummy off the bridge. In this case, the dummy won!”

Bob Lentsch recalled that “when we were kids, we used to walk across it to get to Oleson Park from the Westside. If a train was coming, you had to make it to one of the step offs or beat the train to the other side. Pretty hard to do.”

Dale Hearn, who has photographed the bridge dozens of times, including the photo used with this article, said his grandmother, Sigrid Hearn, instilled a love of railroads in her kids and grandkids. Hearn worked as a lineman for Iowa Illinois Gas & Electric (later, MidAmerican Energy) for 35 years before retiring in 2009.

“Grandmother lived in the Flats below the Karl King Bridge, down the street about 10 blocks from the High Bridge,” he said. “I watched trains go over that bridge from the time I was in kindergarten. We kids would sit in her yard among the plum trees and look down the street and see part of the bridge. When I was a teenager, I got a chance to ride with the switch crews dozens of times.”

It is illegal to go walk onto the bridge and there are signs posted by Union Pacific on both ends of the bridge that say: “Private Property — No Trespassing.”

“My favorite memory is always getting to the other end,” Heddinger said with a laugh, adding, “but I was never scared to go over it. When you’re in a train up on the middle of the bridge, it’s a beautiful view looking over horizons, at the city of Fort Dodge and looking down river.

“It’s impressive, so many things about it, when they built it, the equipment they had back then, the craftsmanship and design that went into it, the fact it is still in operation today after all those years.”