The Arroyo Colorado, the Lower Rio Grande Valley’s only natural waterway besides the Rio Grande, runs 89 miles from Mission in Hidalgo County to the lower Laguna Madre in Cameron County and has hindered travel since early colonization in the late 1700s, with only two prominent crossing points. Rio Hondo was established in 1910 on the east bank of the Arroyo Colorado, making travel there difficult for people coming from Harlingen and other communities west of the stream. After the San Benito Canal opened nearby land to agricultural development, a narrow low-water wooden bridge on piles was built across the Arroyo in the 1920s, but flooding and high tidal flows often affected it, so a one-vehicle ferry served travelers until a one-lane steel span bridge was erected in 1927. When dredging of the Arroyo Colorado for a Harlingen port went forward, a temporary swing bridge was built, and in May 1953 a new vertical-lift bridge more than 380 feet long and 25 feet wide opened. Designed by the New York engineering firm Parsons, Brinckerhoff, Hall and MacDonald, it used two electric pulley motors on each side of the span and took ten to fifteen minutes to lift and lower. The bridge became a practical economic lifeline, a gateway to area attractions, and the only lift bridge built in Texas between 1945 and 1960 that remains in operation.