The bridge, which replaced motor vehicle use of the Wabash Bridge, was opened in 1936 by President Franklin D. Roosevelt and entered Missouri at the foot of Cardiff Hill which appeared in Twain's books The Adventures of Tom Sawyer and The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.

A crosswalk crossed the highway, connecting the Twain boyhood home with the lighthouse at the top of the hill.

On the Missouri side, the bridge ran into downtown Hannibal, just north of Hill Street.

[1] In the late 1990s, construction started on a new bridge to carry I-72 west into Hannibal (I-72 turned into I-172 at milepost 4).

Increased traffic on the deteriorating, old, narrow bridge was also a contributing factor.