From 1914 to 1916, vehicles and wagons were required to share the Red Rock Bridge with trains across the Colorado River. Before that time, road travelers crossed the river on the Needles Ferry. But, in 1914, when a flood took the ferry out of commission, planks were put on the Red Rock Bridge, where automobiles and wagons crossed between trains.

However, in 1916, the old Trails Arch Bridge, an engineering marvel at the time, was opened to vehicle traffic. The steel arch bridge was the very one that carried the dust bowl immigrants to California and written about in the Grapes of Wrath.

Photo by Kathy Weiser-Alexander.