After Pond Eddy continued to grow in both states, local officials decided a bridge should be erected to connect the two communities.

James D. Decker, then the Sullivan County sheriff and former Lumberland town supervisor was hired to supervise the construction of the bridge.

The riverfront location on the New York side had two stores, a Methodist church, a telegraph office, eighteen homes and a new hotel with a restaurant.

The Pond Eddy Bridge served the town of Lumberland well in the late 19th century, but the area's prosperity did not last.

Decker died at 77 years old in 1900, having lived long enough to experience the rise and fall of Pond Eddy.

Since then the bridge's history has been virtually uneventful, surviving the flooding during the remains of Hurricane Diane in 1955 with little damage.

The National Bridge Inventory Survey categorizes its condition as "Structurally Deficient" and "Basically intolerable requiring high priority of replacement".

[5] In 2005, the town of Narrowsburg passed a resolution calling on the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation (PennDOT) to replace the bridge.

In 2005, the community of Narrowsburg, New York, several miles upstream, requested that Pennsylvania Department of Transportation replace the 102-year-old structure.

[10] The Upper Delaware Council said that the 8 ton (7.2 tonne) limit on the bridge was inadequate for service trucks and emergency vehicles.

The Shohola Township supervisors support maintaining the existing bridge, but the Lumberland Town Board was not convinced that it would be sufficient.

One possibility is to replace the bridge, and move the antique structure elsewhere in Sullivan County, since it is a popular tourist attraction.

[11] In June 2008, a compromise was made defining the possibility of a $12 million bridge to replace the 104-year-old deteriorating structure.

[14] Replacement began on April 18, 2011 of 64 stringer beams and on May 25, the project was completed, less than a month ahead of schedule.

[16] Officials from the state of New York stopped the replacement project in 2012 due to concerns of the local preservationist group, Save the Pond Eddy Bridge, which complained that the $12 million (2012 USD) project would only serve twelve families in Shohola Township and was a waste of taxpayer funding.

In May 2013, a deal was reached between all agencies, developing a new bridge that would be 22 feet (6.7 m) wide, with a single lane and sidewalk.

The agency also sent out invitations for all municipalities in Lackawanna, Luzerne, Pike, Susquehanna, Wayne and Wyoming counties.

The replacement bridge was built about 50 feet (15 m) upstream from the original, and although modernized with more robust framing, retained the characteristic trusses.