This site has been an important Big Sioux River crossing for more than 300 years. As early as the 1700s the Yankton Sioux forded the river here and often made camp while en route to pipestone quarries in Minnesota. After the slaying of Judge Amidon and his son William during the Dakota Conflict of 1862, the entire population and their cavalry escort fled Sioux Falls City and crossed the river at this point. Later federal troops used this ford when traveling between Fort Dakota (1865-1869) and Fort Randall. A ferry was established here in 1880. Three years later local carpenter Leonard Cashman built the first bridge, a primitive wooden affair, at this crossing. Builder S. M. Hewett constructed the Yankton Trail Bridge in 1895. A rare example of a pin-connected Parker Through-Truss bridge, it is an elongated rectangular steel span, 177 feet long by 21 feet wide. Originally used by horse-drawn wagons and buggies traveling the Yankton Trail, its roadway was a wood plank floor. The Old Yankton Bridge was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1999.