The Cut Stone Bridge was constructed in 1863 for the San Francisco & San Jose Railroad, one of the earliest rail lines on the peninsula, which ran between San Francisco and San Jose until it merged with the Central Pacific in 1870. In an area then dominated by farms and cattle ranches, the bridge was built first class in anticipation of the railroad’s impact. By the mid twentieth century passenger service had stopped along this part of the line, and the bridge and rail line were abandoned by 1970 and partly paved over as suburban sprawl spread, leaving the bridge nearly forgotten. In 1995, surveyors preparing construction of the BART spur from Colma to San Francisco International Airport rediscovered the bridge, which lay directly in the path of a tunnelized section of the new line. The National Park Service declared it an historic structure in 1999, making it eligible for protection. It was carefully disassembled and removed to make way for the BART tunnel, and after the tunnel was completed in 2002, restoration began. The bridge’s 105 blue stone granite slabs, some five feet deep and weighing up to 1500 pounds, had been shaped by hand in the nineteenth century and had to be reshaped, reinforced with steel for earthquake protection, and repositioned with mortar at the original site.