One of the first river bridges in Beaver County was the Big Beaver Tall Bridge, built in 1815 to connect the manufacturing town of Bridgewater with its smaller suburb of East Bridgewater. This wooden covered bridge stood only seven years before a strong storm destroyed it in 1821. A second wooden covered bridge opened here in July 1826, built by William Le Baron for $20,000 as a more substantial span and operated as a toll bridge until 1884. After Rochester was incorporated as a borough in 1849, the bridge remained a vital crossing until February 1884, when the greatest flood Beaver County had ever seen destroyed it in a chain of wreckage: the wooden Fallston Bridge was lifted from its piers, carried downriver into the Big Beaver Bridge, then broke loose and struck the Cleveland & Pittsburg Railroad bridge, and the remains of all three were swept into the Ohio River and crashed into the iron bridge of the Pittsburgh & Lake Erie Railroad. The destruction was so severe that newspapers across the country reported it. A third bridge, an iron bridge with a wooden floor, was completed in 1885 and again operated as a toll bridge until 1905, serving Bridgewater and Rochester during the busy industrial period of the late 19th century and carrying the streets of the Beaver Valley Traction Company beginning in 1891. In April 1931, the bridge's wooden floor caught fire and the structure was destroyed. The current Bridgewater-Rochester Bridge opened to the public as a free bridge on June 2, 1933.