This foot bridge is located between the headwaters and the Visitor's Center in Itasca State Park. It is the second bridge on the river, and the third man-made structure. The bridge is wavy since the headwaters area is very marshy, and it isn't practical to sink pilings down to bed rock. This bridge provided an alternative path to the headwaters for people who wanted to follow the river channel more closely.

The picture postcard scene at the headwaters is totally manufactured. The real character of the original Mississippi River as it left Lake Itasca was a low wide marsh with no specific river channel. Around 1900, a group of local loggers decided that it was not proper that such a great river get its start by running through a muddy swamp. So, the dug a new channel to bypass the marsh. That is the channel that we see today. This foot bridge spans both the new channel and the remainder of the marsh, and the two channels join just downstream of this bridge.