[8] Its northern portal lies at the foot of the Magnificent Mile, between the Wrigley Building and Tribune Tower.

[9] The northern end of the bridge covers part of the Jean Baptiste Point Du Sable Homesite,[n 1] which is commemorated by a National Historic plaque in Pioneer Court.

[15] A fur trader of African descent who married into the Potawatomi tribe, he established a permanent homestead and trading post near the mouth of the Chicago River in the 1780s.

[16] A boulevard to link the parks on Chicago's north and south sides was proposed as early as 1891.

[17] In 1903 an editorial in the Chicago Tribune proposed a new bascule bridge across the river at Michigan Avenue.

[28] At the time of construction it was believed to be the first double-deck bridge ever built to have roadway on both levels; faster non-commercial traffic using the upper deck and slower commercial traffic that served the various industries and docks in the vicinity of the river using the lower deck.

[29] The counterweights are below the level of the lower deck and when the bridge is opened they swing down into 40-foot-deep (12 m) reinforced concrete tailpits that descend 34.5 feet (10.5 m) below the surface of the river.

The sculptures on the northern bridgehouses were commissioned by William Wrigley Jr. and made by James Earle Fraser: The Discoverers depicts Louis Joliet, Jacques Marquette, René-Robert Cavelier, Sieur de La Salle and Henri de Tonti;[35] The Pioneers depicts John Kinzie leading a group through the wilderness.

[36] The sculptures on the southern bridgehouses were commissioned by the Benjamin F. Ferguson Monument Fund, and are by Henry Hering: Defense depicts Ensign George Ronan in a scene from the 1812 Battle of Fort Dearborn;[37] Regeneration depicts workers rebuilding Chicago after the Great Chicago Fire of 1871.

[33] The Robert R. McCormick Foundation was the major donor that helped to provide the $950,000 cost of the formation of the museum.

[33] Due to its small size and tight access stairway, only 79 people are allowed inside the museum at any one time.

[41] Chicago Tribune cultural arts writer Steve Johnson called the museum's gear room, where the DuSable Bridge mechanics can be viewed working, "a little chamber of heaven for infrastructure nerds.