The bridge is named after Charles W. Dean, the engineer who first proposed building this bridge in the 1980's. A citizens group from Cleveland, Mississippi championed the need for this bridge for a decade. They caught a major break when the NAFTA treaty was ratified by the US, and a number of powerful senators including Al Gore and Trent Lott proposed the NAFTA highway linking Canada and Mexico.

The NAFTA highway was passed into law and designated to be the highest priority of any national highway corridor. It is designated I-69, and it will use the existing I-69 highway in Michigan and Indiana. The NAFTA highway bill sets the Mississippi River crossing to be at Arkansas City via what was then called the Great River Bridge, now named the Charles W. Dean Bridge.

Charles Dean expected that it would take 8 to 12 years to get the bridge funded and built. Had this prediction come true, he would have seen the bridge be completed prior to his death from cancer in 1998. As it stands, the bridge is approved and funded at the federal level, but construction has not started as of January 2007.