The Wabasha-Nelson Bridge Company was incorporated in 1929 to build and operate a toll bridge over the Mississippi River, with the Minneapolis Bridge Company and C.A.P. Turner contracted to design and build it. In 1930, the local board of directors, W.B. Webb, Henry J. Mars, S. M. Quigley, and Nick Marx, estimated construction at $500,000 and offered 4,750 shares of preferred stock at $100 per share, totaling $475,000, while planning to sell common stock to raise the remaining $25,000; final construction totaled $675,000. On January 1, 1931, the builder officially turned the bridge over to the company and it opened to traffic. Oscar Overbeck of Alma, Wisconsin, was the first motorist to pay a toll, and Ed O'Reilly, Sr. was the first pedestrian. In the first 24 hours, 190 tolls totaling $60.35 were collected, and the first four days produced $282.30. In 1947, the Minnesota and Wisconsin highway departments purchased the bridge for $400,000. It was the last known private toll bridge built in Minnesota. Claude Allen Porter Turner was considered one of Minnesota's most significant engineers, and the bridge was a prominent example of his reinforced concrete system, in which concrete slabs are supported by columns that flare outward at the top and replace the need for beams. After the bridge became highway department property, repairs were needed: on June 12, 1968, a concrete pier on the Wisconsin approach collapsed and was replaced with a steel pier, and in 1970 a barge struck one of the new pier caissons, requiring repairs costing about $6,500. A statewide Department of Transportation plan called for replacement, and in 1988 the old Wabasha-Nelson Bridge was demolished and replaced with a new structure. In October 1988, people from Wisconsin and Minnesota walked across the old bridge one last time during a community celebration before the new bridge opened.