The bascule lift bridge uses a counterweight system like the drawbridges over fortress moats in the 15th and 16th centuries. In 1850, a pontoon bridge linked the east and west harbor communities beside the Ashtabula River, but its floating span had to be pulled with long ropes and pulleys and was very unstable. In 1889, the river channel needed to be widened for larger ships, and a swing bridge replaced the pontoon bridge. Thomas E. Brown, a New York City native known for designing the original elevator in the Eiffel Tower in Paris, developed the first bascule bridge in the 1890's, using overhead counterweights connected to trusswork balance beams. Wendell P. Brown, not related to Thomas E. Brown, designed the Ashtabula Bascule Lift Bridge in 1925. During the summer season, it operates 24 hours a day and is lifted on the hour and half hour for pleasure boaters traveling along the Ashtabula River to and from Lake Erie. A bridge tender in the control room below the counterweight watches the bridge and river, sounds a horn, and lowers the gates before opening the span to its jackknife position so pedestrians and automobiles will stop. Because of its unique structure and history, it was added to the National Register in 1976, and through cooperation among city, county, state, and federal governments, it was restored in 1986 at a cost of $5.2 million. It is the only bridge of its kind still used for automobile traffic in Ohio.