The city decided to build a drawbridge so that commercial ships from the port could pass.

In 1926, the mayor of Bilbao, Federico Moyúa, sent architect Ricardo Bastida (1879-1953) to Chicago to study drawbridges.

Back home, Bastida tasked the engineers Ignacio Rotaetxe and José Ortiz de Artiñano with the construction of the bridge.

Designed in 1929, its construction began in October 1933 and was carried out by the Euskalduna and Babcock & Wilcox factories.

The bridge opened on 12 December 1934, but was destroyed on 17 June 1937 during the Spanish Civil War.