Pedestrians use the bridge to get between the hotels, bars, restaurants, and parking lots in Northern Kentucky.

Commerce between Ohio and Kentucky had increased to the point that the highly congested steamboat traffic was constricting the economy.

A solution that would not constrict traffic on the river even further was a wire cable suspension bridge of the type developed by French engineers.

The brief outline of his ideas called for a 1,200-foot (370 m) span with 100 feet (30 m) of clearance at high water to allow steamboats to pass unobstructed, but it included a monumental tower in the middle of the river.

He attacked steamboat operators for using oversized chimneys, speculated on future commercial interests, and surmised on the importance of spanning western rivers.

After observing the construction of a suspension bridge upriver, in Wheeling, Virginia (later West Virginia), the legislature relented and passed the charter, mandating excessive dimensions such as a 1,400 feet (430 m) main span and requesting that the legislature determine the bridge location.

When the Ohio legislature decided to choose its own location for the bridge, it failed to pick such an obvious spot, hoping to defend Cincinnati's preeminence over Newport and Covington, the rival Kentucky cities.

Shinkle immediately managed to find new private investors and to procure more support from both the Ohio and Kentucky governments.

When the crews reached the compacted gravel bed of the Ohio River, Roebling decided this would be sufficient for the foundation of the Cincinnati tower.

Work halted for the freezing temperatures and increased water level, a practice which continued seasonally until completion of the bridge.

At this time, a revised contract was drawn up, stating work was to be completed by December 1858, barring "unavoidable calamities".

In November 1860, Abraham Lincoln was elected president of the United States, and the Civil War began in January 1861.

Upon a threatened siege of Cincinnati from Confederate forces, a pontoon bridge was built to span the Ohio River, allowing Union troops to cross and construct defenses.

Machinery was ordered, and new derricks were built, but a renewed threat of invasion again temporarily halted progress.

The Civil War depleted the work force on the project, hindering speed and efficiency until its end.

They were unwound from a spool on a barge, allowed to sink to the bottom of the river, then raised in unison from the riverbed.

Wooden crossbeams were laid at regular intervals from the wire ropes, and a simple footbridge was constructed for the benefit of the workers.

With the Ohio River "spanned," there was a final push to complete the project even through floods and freezing temperatures.

Diagonal stays were added to increase load capacity, strengthen the floor, and check vibration.

In 1896, the bridge received a second set of main cables, a wider steel deck, and a longer northern approach.

The reconstruction significantly altered the appearance of the bridge, but the new 30-ton weight limit extended its usefulness through the 20th century and beyond.

[10] Ramps were constructed leading directly from the bridge to the Dixie Terminal building used for streetcars in the late 1920s.

These provided Covington–Cincinnati streetcars "with a grade-separated route to the center of downtown, and the terminal building was originally intended to connect, via underground pedestrian passages, with the never-built Fountain Square Station of the infamous Cincinnati Subway.

As more railroads were built and barges replaced steamboat traffic, dams to raise the river and control flooding made sense.

During the 1940s, a shift from steam propelled to diesel powered towboats allowed for longer barges than could be accommodated by the existing dams.

In the 1950s the US Army Corps of Engineers replaced the outdated system with new non-navigable dams made of concrete and steel.

When streetcar service ceased in the 1950s, the ramps onto the Dixie terminal were rebuilt to be used by diesel buses.