[5] The bridge carries U.S. Highway 24 over the Eagle River, as well as a county road, and the former Union Pacific Railroad track that heads south toward Tennessee Pass and the city of Leadville.

[1] The bridge was designed by King Burghardt, an engineer at the Colorado Department of Highways, and built by contractor P.M. Kenney in 1940, using steel components fabricated by the Minnesota-Moline Power Implement Company.

[1] Construction was difficult, with workers hanging over a 200 ft (61 m) drop while working in temperatures that sometimes dipped below 0 °F (−18 °C).

Burghardt wrote in his journal, "In the morning, each gang was lifted to its scaffold on a platform hung from the high line.

They took their lunches with them and spent the entire day in the air with the winter wind continually blowing up the canyon.