Dunn's Bridge is associated with a farmer named J.D. Dunn, whose one thousand acres of farmland were bisected by the Kankakee River and who needed a bridge to reach his fields, but the bridge's exact origins remain uncertain. Some local historians say he built it in the mid-1890s using steel beams from the 1893 Chicago World's Fair, while others say it was built in 1904 with parts from the original Ferris Wheel, which premiered at the 1893 World's Fair and was demolished after the 1904 World's Fair; metal tests suggest the steel came from the same foundry that cast the Ferris Wheel. By the 1980s the bridge had fallen into major disrepair, and after Porter County Parks and Recreation purchased the one hundred eighty-foot-long bridge and surrounding three acres in 1994, it undertook an award-winning restoration. The bridge is now listed on the National Register of Historic Places. Officially dedicated as a Porter County park in 2005, Dunn's Bridge Park provides Porter County's only designated public access point to the Kankakee River, whose one hundred thirty-three miles became a designated National Water Trail in 2016 with help from the Northwest Indiana Paddling Association. From Dunn's Bridge, boaters can travel six and six-tenths miles west to Baum's Bridge or continue another twelve miles to Grand Kankakee Marsh County Park, and despite channelization in the early 1900s that straightened the once meandering river, the area still offers natural beauty and fishing for walleye, bass, crappie, bluegill, and northern pike.