Grey Cloud island sits in a corner of the river where the Mississippi River makes a sharp curve from flowing east and west near Hastings to flowing north and south upriver as far as downtown Saint Paul. While Saint Paul Park and Cottage Grove have seen rapid development, the area near and on Grey Cloud Island is still relatively rural. In fact, most of the island is dominated by two very large sand and gravel operations.
The Grey Cloud Island Bridge consists of a causeway and box culvert on Geneva Avenue at approximately River Mile 822.5. The bridge is barely visible from the road. In fact, as the photo above shows, the best vantage point to see the bridge is by looking upstream from the Grey Cloud Trail Bridge.
This area has seen a number of floods in past years. A recent repair project stabilized the causeway by adding fill and rip-rap to the sides of the roadway. To protect the bridge, sheet pile was driven in along the wings of the bridge, forming much bigger wings able to support the wider causeway.