In 1931, the Arizona State Highway Department built a four-span, 160-foot-long reinforced concrete T-beam bridge over Red Top Wash as part of efforts to improve the main road between Phoenix and Yuma. This route roughly followed the old Gila Trail, which had served as a military and wagon road and later the 1883 Southern Pacific Railroad route. Beginning in 1911, the old trail became part of the Pikes Peak Ocean-to-Ocean Highway, and in 1927 its alignment was incorporated into the federal-aid highway system as US 80. In 1931, this was the most heavily traveled state route in Arizona. The highway was widened in 1949, bypassed in 1967 by modern Interstate-8, and the bridge was replaced in 2009-2010 with a new prestressed concrete beam bridge completed in 2010, one of the first in Arizona built with American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 funds intended to stimulate the economy.