Completed in 1924, the Meridian Bridge became a lasting crossing over the Missouri River at Yankton, replacing unreliable ferries and seasonal pontoons. It took its name from the Meridian Highway, a direct north-south route following the Sixth Principal Meridian through the central United States from Winnipeg, Canada, to the Gulf of Mexico, later rerouted and renamed U.S. Highway 81. Local Yankton business owners formed the Meridian Bridge Company to begin the project. The double-decker toll bridge was first designed for two-way traffic on the upper level and trains below, with a vertical lift section that could rise twenty-seven feet for river traffic, but the railroad was never built, and in later years the lower and upper decks carried one-way automobile traffic. The bridge survived several floods and provided safe passage between states regardless of river conditions. It was refurbished in 1953 and its tolls were removed, the lift mechanism was removed in 1983, it was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1993, and after being judged unable to support modern highway traffic, it was replaced in 2008 by the adjacent Discovery Bridge. In 2011 it reopened as a pedestrian bridge linking Yankton's Riverside Park to hiking trails on the south bank below the bridge.