Due to increased demand, they built a twin sister bridge next to the existing one.

In 1895, a group of businessmen formed the "Knights of Ak-Sar-Ben" ("Nebraska" spelled backward).

The hated toll booths were paraded through Omaha before a crowd of 35,000 observers to celebrate Free Bridge Day on September 24, 1947.

[1] It was replaced in November 1966 with an unnamed I-480 girder bridge (I-480 was to go on and be named the "Gerald R. Ford Freeway" after the native son President).

Attempts were made to salvage the bridge as a pedestrian walkway, but it was demolished in 1968 although the east pier remains in the river just south of the interstate on the Council Bluffs side.