While the southern bridge in this crossing is tall and has a number of spans, the northern bridge over the north channel of the Saint Louis River is low to the water and has 4 equal length spans. The bridge is low to the water because the river is not navigable at this location and there is no need to span over streets or railroad tracks.
Despite being low and short as compared to long and tall, this bridge has the same decorative elements as the southern bridge in this river crossing. That includes various vertical lines and horizontal inserts cast into the concrete. The piers have arch-shaped openings below the deck, and the ends of the piers extend above the deck and form the anchors for the guardrails. A modern style street light was selected where the arm of the light is flat and sits at a perfect right angle from the support pole. The railings consist of a standard height concrete guardrail, topped off by a wrought-iron railings. These upper rails are not only very attractive looking, they act as protection for bicyclist.
One interesting detail that we see under the bridge is that the bridge was built as two independent roadways joined by a single pier that carries both roadways. We can tell that there is a gap between roadways by the beam of sunlight running the length of the bridge on the surface of the river.
The photo above is looking north along the downriver east face of the MN-33 Bridge over the north channel of the Saint Louis River. The vantage point is a walking trail on Dunlap Island. The Upper Dunlap Island Bridge, a former railroad bridge now used as a recreational trail, is visible in the distance on the far left side of the photograph.
