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By Tim Ruzek

Editor’s note: This is the continuation of a column in last Saturday’s Herald.

During the late 1950s, a new “Belt Line” highway was being built across the Austin’s north side.

This “Belt Line” actually became Minnesota’s first section of Interstate 90, which formally opened in November 1961.

Given this major infrastructure planning and work, the Mower County Board in October 1959 committed $100,000 (about $925,000 in today’s dollars) to build a new bridge over the Cedar River at Fox Drive, which crossed the river where North Main Street goes past Bremer Bank today at Austin Mill Pond.

At the time, the Cedar took a horseshoe-shaped bend on its way into Austin Mill Pond.

The Austin Daily Herald called the county’s move a “good omen for the future.” County and city officials worked to develop Fox Drive “in the way it should be developed as an important link to the highway Belt Line,” the Herald wrote. The county’s cooperation on the bridge allowed the city to plan for widening and improving Fox Drive (today’s 4th Street Northeast along the Hormel Foods plant’s west side).

Fox Drive’s iron-truss bridge was “hazardously narrow” and now handling heavy traffic.

“It will obviously increase considerably when the ‘Belt Line’ and the new interstate highway are completed,” the Herald wrote.

Traffic counts in 1959 showed about 1,200 passenger cars parked in Hormel’s back lot each day along with 400 cattle trucks; plus, 200 commercial carriers using Fox Drive every day while hauling finished Hormel products.

Fox Drive’s position over the river also led local officials to seek its replacement. When installed in 1931, the bridge had to be placed further west than desired so it could reach both sides of the river. This created a slightly slanted crossing.

Plans moved forward for a two-year project to start in summer 1960, when the city would widen and improve Fox Drive from “Belt Line” going south to Hormel’s private road.

In 1960, officials mulled two options for a new bridge and the river:

1. Put a new bridge 55 feet east of the old bridge to line up Fox Drive with North Main Street and retain the Cedar’s bend into Mill Pond.

2. Straighten the road by filling the Cedar’s bend and place a new bridge 400 feet east of the old bridge. The new bridge would cross a newly cut channel into Mill Pond.

City leaders in February 1960 approved a design for a new Fox Drive bridge and plan to rechannel the Cedar, filling in the river’s “horseshoe swing.”

Filling the bend was expected to take more than 100,000 cubic yards of dirt over several years. That’s about 7,000 to 10,000 dump truck loads of dirt. One area needed about 25 feet of fill.

By late 1960, the “Belt Line” was 90 percent done, and the city and county approved a plan for the new Fox Drive approach.

On Jan. 17, 1961, the Herald ran a photo of the new bridge under construction, describing it as “over a river that isn’t there.” The Cedar’s new channel was dug after the bridge’s completion.

At the same time, the old bridge had to be closed in March 1961 due to flooding – something it endured numerous times since 1931.

By August 1961, work began on cutting the Cedar’s new channel and filling the shoreline along North Main, which was widened and moved 25 feet to the east.

With a new freeway, locals expected increased traffic along Fox Drive into downtown Austin. In fall 1961, Interstate 90 opened, and Austin Mill Pond looked quite different.

“A look down North Main Street presents a very considerable transformation with a new road now flung across the Cedar River channel, and within a relatively short time,” the Herald wrote Oct. 20, 1961.

This new road was opened to vehicles the following week. The Herald ran the headline: “City’s ‘Back Door’ Becomes ‘Front Door’ by Changing River.”

When completed, the project “will represent a very considerable improvement in the appearance of the city’s ‘front yard’,” the Herald wrote.

Filling the river’s old bend would be done as earthen material became available from other work likely over three to four years. In paving contracts, the city specified excavated material be used to fill the bend.

Photos in the Herald’s Nov. 25, 1961, edition – titled “The New Scenic Cedar” – showed the new and old bridges, the new river channel and the former river bend waiting to be filled.

“Machines can change the course of a river as events can alter the course of time. And the Red Cedar River as it flows through Austin takes a new course,” the Herald wrote.

Two months later, crews started dismantling the old bridge as vehicles drove by on the new North Main-Fox Drive route.

Soon after, construction began on a new YMCA, which opened in 1963 up the hill from the old river bend.

Another North Main bridge was built in 1966 over the Cedar about a quarter-mile north of the old crossing and downstream from Interstate 90’s two bridges over the river.

Decades later, this area of the former state park, bridge and “horseshoe” bend of the river has changed dramatically with commercial and residential developments protected by a multi-million-dollar system of flood-protective walls and berms.

If you have a question or would like to reach out to suggest a topic for Tim Ruzek, he can be contacted at tim@mowerdistrict.org.