The Fairview Bridge crossing the Yellowstone River in North Dakota was named for the Montana town of Fairview five miles west. Although regarded as the only lift span bridge in North Dakota, it has a twin structure nine miles north crossing the Missouri River in Montana. Both bridges were begun in 1912 and completed in the fall of 1913. Because the United States government considered both rivers navigable, the bridge required a lift span to let steamboat traffic pass beneath, with enough clearance to rise eighty feet above an average river level. The span was tested once, rising forty-three feet in thirty minutes, but it was never used in service because steamboat traffic on the Lower Yellowstone ended in 1912. Its lift machinery sat atop the span and included a three-cylinder kerosene engine aided by counterweights containing 343 cubic yards of concrete, connected through the lift towers by cables two inches in diameter. The lift span weighs 1.14 million pounds and is 271 feet long, while the lift towers are 108 feet tall. The structure includes four through-truss spans ranging from 213 to 271 feet in length and four girder-truss spans from 48 to 60 feet long. The bridge itself is 1,320 feet long, and with a long wood trestle on the west end it once reached 2,994 feet, until the trestle was filled over in 1969 with 80,000 cubic yards of earth and gravel. Waddell and Harrington of Kansas City designed the bridge, and the American Bridge Company of Gary, Indiana, manufactured it. About 4.5 million pounds of steel went into its construction at a cost of nearly $500,000. Soon after completion, the railroad bridge also carried automobiles, though crossing the bridge and the long trestle to the west was difficult. After Highway 23 reached the Yellowstone River in 1926, the bridge was altered for both rail and automobile traffic with a wooden-planked deck, access routes at each end, and a wooden bridge connecting the west approach from the north. This dual use remained hazardous, so a watchman operated a swing gate and telephone system to allow automobiles to cross. The railroad ran it as a toll bridge until 1937, when the State Highway Department took over maintenance and the watchman's salary. That arrangement lasted until 1955, when the Hjaimer Nelson Memorial Highway Bridge was built across the Yellowstone River. The last train crossed eastbound to Watford City on June 5, 1966.