Between 1884 and 1903, a wooden bridge connected Comstock Park with the City of Grand Rapids until a Grand River flood swept away three of its spans. In 1904, a wrought iron truss bridge was built on the same location at a cost of $31,306. Using the Pratt Truss design invented in 1844 by Thomas and Caleb Pratt, the New Jersey Bridge Company, under the direction of Grand Rapids city engineer L.W. Anderson, produced a structure of five 116-foot spans with crossed X braces in the center sections and single slanted braces at each end. Four concrete piers in the river and concrete abutments at each end supported the bridge, which featured a 21-foot wooden plank deck, later replaced with asphalt, that carried two lanes of traffic, first horses and wagons and later automobiles. Pedestrians used a six-foot-wide plank sidewalk outside the trusses on the north side, and a separate streetcar bridge also stood to the north. By 1988, time and heavy use had forced the North Park Bridge to close to all traffic, and three years later it was replaced with a wider reinforced concrete structure. A steel span from the 1904 bridge survives as an example of early 20th-century bridge-building materials and technology.