The year 1871 was an exciting time for the Minnesota River Valley. The railroads were coming. The transcontinental railroad opened in 1869, and the race was on to get across the state of Minnesota and over to Omaha. The Winona & Saint Peter, which later became the Omaha Road, was building a swing bridge at Saint Peter. The Minneapolis & Saint Louis was building a bridge at Carver. And the Hastings & Dakota was heading westward from Hastings by building a swing bridge at Chaska.

The Hastings & Dakota already had a line between Minneapolis and Saint Paul. They desired a line around the city to bypass the congestion of the maze of tracks in Minneapolis. The route that they selected ran through Farmington, Prior Lake, Shakopee, and down the south side of the river to Chaska. The route crossed at Chaska on a swing bridge, followed the riverbank for about a mile, then crossed a trestle into the city of Chaska. The line continued west to Cologne.

The Hastings & Dakota was taken over by the Milwaukee Road shortly after this line opened. The Milwaukee Road pushed west across the state and into South Dakota. In 1905, the Milwaukee Road started building west from Mobridge, South Dakota, and completed their Pacific route to Seattle. Despite having the best route to the Pacific and dominating traffic coming out of Seattle, the Milwaukee Road mismanaged the route and ended up in bankruptcy.

The Milwaukee Road built a connector from Hopkins on the west side of Minneapolis to Cologne, which resulted in the Chaska bridge becoming a secondary route. Traffic dropped off after World War II, and the route through Chaska was abandoned at some point in the 1970s. Shortly after that abandonment, the concept of rails to trails was born. The state DNR and the counties of Carver and Scott teamed up to build one of the first rails to trails project in the state. They reclaimed the old Hasting & Dakota line between Chaska and Shakopee and converted it into a paved bicycle and walking path. The highlight of the trail was the Minnesota River crossing on the old swing bridge. Both the bridge and the trestle were redecked and railings were installed. The four mile long path proved to be very successful and helped to prove the concept of rails to trails.

Disaster struck the Chaska-Shakopee Bicycle Trail a few years after it opened. I don't recall the specific date, but it may have been Halloween night, possibly in 1986, a group of kids lit the Hastings & Dakota Trestle on fire. By the time the fire was reported and fire crews arrived on scene, the south end of the trestle was almost fully consumed. Fire crews were able to keep the fire off of the northern third of the bridge, but the southern third was damaged beyond repair.

At that point, the story gets even worse. Before deciding to fix the trestle, an inspection was ordered for the main river channel swing bridge. Inspectors reported that this structure had some problems, and it needed to be closed for repairs. Two large floods in the early 1990s set the project back even further. After the floods, the US Army Corps of Engineers decided to build a new flood control project for the city of Chaska. As part of the project, they requested that the swing bridge be removed. In early 1995, the state of Minnesota DNR let a contract for the demolition of the swing bridge. It was brought down by explosives later that summer. The trestle and the trail on the north side of the river was fenced off.

The Chaska-Shakopee Bicycle Trail languished for 20 years. An extension was built south of the river from the old bridge to a landing near MN-41, but there was no way to bring the trail into Chaska. The MN-41 river bridge was too narrow and too busy to allow hikers or bicycle traffic. Finally, a new highway bridge was started in 2004. When finished, it would feature wide sidewalks on each side of the traffic lanes to accommodate regional trail traffic. The new bridge finally opened in 2007. Once again, this gem of a trail is back in full operation.

The photo above is a view of the fire damage on the south end of the Hastings & Dakota trestle. Moss is growing on horizontal beams, likely due to water pooling up in the cracks and pockets that were formed when the wood burned. The photo below is the first view of the north end of the structure when hiking south on the trail located behind the Carver County Government Center.

The photo above is a view of the east face of the Hastings & Dakota trestle as seen from the levee that runs behind the Carver County Government Center. The photo below is a view looking southwest towards the trestle from the trail that runs along the top of the levee.

The photo above is looking south down the length of the trestle. The trestle extends for quite a distance across the river bottom before it connects to a mile long fill that runs along the bank of the Minnesota River. The trestle is blocked off due to the fire damage, and one span has been removed as an attempt to keep pedestrians off of the structure. The photo below is a view of the west face of the trestle from the river bottom area.

The photo above is a view of trestle from a trail that runs between the power line service road to the east of the structure and the Minnesota River to the west of the structure. The photo below is a close view of the fire damage on the south end of the trestle. The deck has burned off, and the stringers are all but destroyed.

These two photos are looking south towards the south end of the trestle. The photo above is the east face of the structure, while the photo below is the west face. Several of the vertical supports near the end of the trestle were totally consumed in the fire. Note that the wire mesh that once formed the guard rails is still draped along the top of the ruins.

The photo above is another view of the fire damage on the south end of the trestle. The photo below is a close view of the missing span at the north end of the structure.