Prescott Drawbridge

Prescott Drawbridge
The bridge in 2009
Coordinates	44°44′56″N 92°48′17″W / 44.74889°N 92.80472°W / 44.74889; -92.80472
Carries	US 10
Crosses	St. Croix River (Wisconsin-Minnesota)
Locale	Prescott, Wisconsin and Denmark Township, Minnesota
Official name	Prescott Highway Bridge
Other name(s)	Prescott Drawbridge
ID number	82010
Characteristics
Design	steel girder with double-leaf bascule draw span
Total length	672 feet (205 m)
Width	54 feet (16 m), 4 lanes
Height	20 feet (6.1 m)
History
Opened	1990
Statistics
Daily traffic	13000/day
Location

The Prescott Drawbridge, also called the Point Douglas Drawbridge, is a steel girder bridge with a double-leaf bascule drawbridge section. The roadbed of the drawbridge span is a steel grate. The bridge carries U.S. 10 across the St. Croix River and connects Prescott, Wisconsin, with the Point Douglas park area of Denmark Township, Minnesota. This is the only highway drawbridge in the Minneapolis–Saint Paul area with active traffic. It was completed in 1990 and replaced a rare regional example of a Waddell & Harrington vertical-lift bridge completed in 1922 that operated as a toll bridge from 1923 to 1946.^[1] The environmental impact statement, published in 1979, considered a higher level fixed bridge at this location.^[2]

Adjacent to the road bridge, the BNSF Railway St. Croix Subdivision crosses the St. Croix river on a Vertical-lift bridge.