Safety concerns shut down bridge crossing Mississippi River into Iowa

A bridge crossing the Mississippi River between Wisconsin and Iowa is closed due to safety concerns.

Iowa Department of Transportation officials closed the Black Hawk Bridge late Saturday night after a monitoring system detected movement in one of the bridge’s support piers.

Construction has been underway for more than a year to replace the 94-year-old bridge connecting rural southwest Wisconsin to Lansing, Iowa. It’s the only river crossing in the 60-mile stretch of state Highway 35 between La Crosse and Prairie du Chien.

Clayton Burke, project manager for the Iowa DOT, said a pier on the Iowa side of the bridge, referred to as Pier 3, moved to the north about 1.5 inches and sank into the ground slightly. He said a survey of the bridge was completed on Sunday and engineers were working Monday to evaluate whether the bridge was safe for use.

Burke said bridges are designed for some movement due to changing temperatures. But other factors, like overweight vehicles, can cause a bridge to shift too much.

“We are vibrating piling (for construction of the new bridge) into the ground right next to Pier 3, so that could certainly have an influence on the structure of the bridge,” he said.

Burke said the DOT also had problems with Pier 3 moving last fall when they were working on construction next to the previous pier. Work on the new bridge was halted for about a month because of the movement.

This is the second time the existing bridge has been shut down since construction started. The crossing was closed between February and April in 2024 after construction caused two piers on the Wisconsin side of the river to slide out of place. Those piers were replaced, and the Iowa DOT provided a water taxi service during the two-month outage.

Burke said it’s too soon to tell how long the current closure could last, but the DOT is hoping to release an update by the end of the week. He said the safety of the structure is the agency’s top concern.

“We want to assure everybody that if it does reopen, it’s because it was determined to be very safe to do so,” he said.

Joanne White lives in Ferryville, a Wisconsin village just south of the Black Hawk Bridge, and sits on the village’s tourism council. She said people in the village frequently cross the bridge to Lansing in order to grocery shop, attend church or dine at restaurants. 

After going through the two-month closure last year, White said the uncertainty around how long this closure will last is challenging.

“It’s a lifeline to go over there easily, and we take it for granted that we can get there,” she said. “It is frustrating, but we want it to be safe.”

A prolonged closure could have an economic impact on village businesses that count on summer tourism. This season may already be impacted by the temporary closure of state Highway 35 north of Prairie du Chien due to construction, affecting travelers looking to drive Wisconsin’s Great River Road. 

White said members of the tourism council were already reporting a decline in visitors for the annual Rummage on the River event over the weekend.

“We still want people to come to Ferryville and to Lansing because of the beauty, and especially for the summer,” she said. “So we hope (the Black Hawk Bridge) won’t be closed for a terribly long time.”