It is located at the site of the first bridge in Austin, carrying Sixth Street across Shoal Creek to link the western and central parts of the old city.

Construction was completed and the bridge opened to traffic in July 1887, giving wagons, automobiles and streetcars access to the western suburbs that would become the city's West Line Historic District.

Since its completion, the bridge has required repairs on numerous occasions (usually due to damage from flooding on Shoal Creek), but the overall design is not believed to have been significantly altered.

[2] Today, the bridge still carries West Sixth Street across Shoal Creek and supports substantial pedestrian and vehicular traffic daily.

On August 18, 2014, the structure was added to the National Register of Historic Places in recognition of its significance as a durable work of civil engineering using local materials and a manifestation of nineteenth-century urban planning in Texas's growing capital city.