WC Wisconsin News

Eau Claire residents are proudly celebrating the nearby S-Bridge being officially designated as a historical landmark by the National Register of Historic Places.

Presented by the Eau Claire Landmark Commission, the distinction is one touted as an honorary designation that promotes a community's structural or cultural resources.

"The National Register designation is an honorary designation that promotes buildings or structural, cultural resources that a community has," Eau Claire Landmark Commission member Ned Noel recently told WQOW. "So it's something that is very special to Eau Claire, something that is one-of-a-kind type structure. As far as we know it's the only 's' bridge, the shape that meanders back-and-forth across the river from the north bank to the south bank, the only type of bridge like this in Wisconsin."

Eau Claire Landmark Commission members moved to bring national attention to the bridge's uniqueness after solidifying local and state recognition for it.

Now standing for more than a century, the bridge was built with steel and iron in 1910 by the Soo Line Railroad to help trains in navigating the many turns across the river, a WisBusiness press release said. The structure that spans the Eau Claire River in the city limits was abandoned for use in 1991, but it was reopened just over a decade later as a pedestrian bridge in 2002. It is now a part of the Chippewa River State Trail.