[3] From the old, Šumadija section of the city, it crosses the Sava between the southern extension of the Bara Venecija neighborhood, just north of the Belgrade Fair complex.

On the Syrmian side, it enters New Belgrade next to the industrial neighborhoods of Savski Nasip and Mala Ciganlija.

Not economically developed to begin with, Serbia was additionally pauperized after the Serbian-Ottoman wars from 1876 to 1878, so it lacked the funds.

Prince Milan Obrenović and the government announced the request for tender and the bidding was won by a French company.

Popular story goes that prince Milan took a bribe of 1 million francs in gold, in order to give the job to the French, but that was never proven.

20 August] 1884, at 3 p.m.[6] As Serbia was declared a kingdom in 1882, the first passengers were now King Milan, Queen Natalie and the Crown Prince Alexander, on the way to Vienna.

[7] When constructed, the 462 m (1,516 ft) long bridge on six, cuboid-shaped stone pillars, weighted 7,200 tons.

[7] As the pillars and foundations were left unharmed, the bridge was restored by the end of 1914, but the Austro-Hungarian army damaged it in 1915.

After occupying Belgrade, the military authorities restored the bridge in 1916, building also a new railroad which directly connected the bridge with the Topčider railway station, so that trains coming from Zemun didn't have to go through the Belgrade Main Station.

The bridge was demolished again on 1 November 1918 by the retreating occupational army and several parts of the construction fell into the river.

[11] That didn't stop the invading army, so already by the end of April 1941, Germans began the reconstruction.

The bridge was inaugurated by the General Joachim von Kortzfleisch and the train decorated with flowers crossed over it,[7][12] on 31 May 1941.

Popular story says that it is because the planners forgot to calculate the weight of the paint needed for the entire bridge.

The project by Predrag Ristić, Ivan Ratković, Ivana Golubović and Miodrag Surijanac drafted a project nicknamed "Street across Sava" which included placing of restaurants and shops on the bridge, turning it into the pedestrian one, a "bazaar on Sava".

[14] It partially lost importance when the New Railroad Bridge, part of the projected Belgrade railway junction, was open in 1979.

As the project included expansion of the Belgrade Fair to the left bank of the Sava, on top of the construction a maglev inter-fair connection was planned.

[15] In December 2020, city administration announced that it would be better if it was adapted into the tram bridge and that surveys will be conducted in order to establish whether this is feasible.