The Iowa Central was bought up by the Minneapolis & St. Louis Railroad on January 1, 1912. The Minneapolis & St. Louis was itself bought by the Chicago & Northwestern on November 1, 1960. The C&NW closed this rail line in 1971.
On June 30, 1981, a group of youth decided that the bridge would make a good launching point for their private fireworks display. A shell entered the bridge tenders shack and exploded. That set the shack on fire, which then set the grease on the bridge mechanism on fire. The fire eventually caused the lift span to fail and drop into the Mississippi River. The accident blocked rver traffic for several days until the US Army Corps of Engineers could remove the collapsed bridge section. Later, a second bridge section and the piers were removed to make a very wide navigation channel. The rest of the bridge survives some 25 years later. There is some track on the Iowa side. The track has been removed from the Illinois side, and the right of way has been removed in places to facilitate water flow in the back water areas.
Keithsburg never was a big city, or a major port. It was devastated in the 1993 Mississippi River flood. What was left has gone further downhill as the remaining industry did not rebuild or left town after the flood. There was a plan to revitalize the city in the mid-2000s, but that failed due to local opposition to a Hooters-style restaurant. There have been proposals to reuse the bridge. One scheme has hopper cars dumping grain into barges from the existing bridge structure. Another plan is to convert the bridge to highway traffic. That would be difficult at best given that this is a single track bridge.
