The Santa Fe, Oregon, and California Trails played a significant role in the history of the United States, and thousands of Conestoga wagons crossed the Big Blue River in this area in the 1840s as travelers made their way southwest to Santa Fe, Oregon Territory, and California Territory. Before bridges were built, crossing rivers and streams in covered wagons was difficult and dangerous because swift currents, deep water, river snags, and unstable footing for livestock and wagons caused injuries and drowning, and wagons were sometimes floated across larger bodies of water. Native grasses along the MetroGreen corridor have attempted to re-create vegetation used by westward travelers. By 1859, the first red bridge, a 100-foot covered wooden bridge on stone piers built by Colonel George N. Todd, a 50-year-old Scottish stonemason, stood just downstream from today's bridges at the actual trail crossing, and its red paint gave rise to the name Red Bridge. By 1892, a red-painted steel "tin" bridge replaced the 1859 bridge, whose wood was recycled into barns by local farmers, including Solomon Young, Harry S. Truman's grandfather. A third red bridge replaced the 1892 bridge and was dedicated by Truman in January 1933 during the Great Depression, and it still stands today below the current Red Bridge, which was completed in 2011 to better accommodate traffic and public safety needs. In 1849, Isaac Wistar wrote of a large camp on the Blue afflicted with cholera, with deaths, a populous graveyard at the crossing of the Big Blue, and numerous single graves along the trail.
