The County Road 510 steel truss bridge over the Dead River grew out of Michigan road legislation in the early 1900's, beginning with the Trunk Line Act of 1913 and then the Aldrich Act of 1919, under which the state assumed full responsibility for maintaining and completing the trunk line system while working with county organizations on construction. In December of 1919, the Board of County Road Commissioners of the County of Marquette and the State Highway Department agreed to build portions of state trunk line M-35, also known as the Baraga Trunk Road, running from Negaunee through the Huron Mountains of Marquette and Baraga Counties and along the Keweenaw Bay shoreline to L'Anse. To cross the Dead River in Negaunee Township, the state bought in the fall of 1919 a 265 ft. curved chord Pennsylvania Truss bridge removed from its original site because it was considered unnecessary as one of two toll bridges crossing the Allegheny River within five hundred feet of each other. The structure was shipped to Marquette County and erected in 1921 under the supervision of Marquette County Road Commission Superintendent Kenneth I. Sawyer, with R.L. Ericson, Gust Anderson, the C.M. Neeld Construction Company, and the Illinois Bridge Company involved in the project. The total cost was $80,710, with the State Highway Department paying 77.5% and the Marquette County Road Commission paying 22.5%. The bridge remained part of the M-35 corridor until 1939, when the State Highway Department cancelled the route because of complications with crossing the Huron Mountains, after which the bridge and completed road sections were turned over to local entities and the route became known as County Road 510. For many years the bridge connected areas north of the Dead River, supporting logging, residential development, and tourism. A 51 ton weight limit in the mid-1990's forced many commercial vehicles onto a long detour, and in 2003 the bridge survived the Silver Lake Flood, caused by a breach in the Silver Lake Dam, when water rose to two tenths of a foot below its bottom girder without harming the structure. That same year the weight limit fell to 40 tons, and after years of planning a new bridge was finalized about 1,300 feet upstream. In May of 2009 the steel bridge's limit dropped to 25 tons, closing the route to almost all truck traffic, including Marquette County Road Commission snowplows, and the bridge closed to traffic in 2010. Because only one other similar structure exists in Michigan, the steel bridge remains in its original location.