The Duluth & Northeastern was primarily a logging railroad. It was chartered in 1898 by the Potlatch Corporation, which ran the Potlatch Paper Mill in Cloquet. The railroad brought logs to the mill, hauled supplies back out to the logging camps, and handled common carrier freight as needed. The railroad once ran 58 miles to Hornby, MN, but in recent years, it ran only to Saginaw, MN, which is about 11 miles north of Cloquet. The D&NE interchanged with the DM&IR and CN at Saginaw.

The D&NE ceased operations around the year 2000. The track was abandoned and removed. Four miles of track remain in Cloquet. It is operated by the Cloquet Terminal Railroad, which switches cars between a few local factories and the BNSF mainline. The CTRR began operations on May 13, 2002, at which time the D&NE went out of existence. It was the last logging railroad to operate in the state.

There are two railroad bridges owned by the D&NE as part of the St. Louis River Crossing. This bridge is the upstream of the two bridges. It once carried trains from Dunlap Island and the D&NE yard over the north channel of the river and onto the D&NE mainline to Saginaw.

Beyond this history, I have no real information on the bridge. It was abandoned sometime between 1998 and 2002, and has since been converted into a rails to trails bridge. I was able to walk the bridge and measure its key dimensions. It is possible that this was the original 1898 bridge, but that seems unlikely. Rather, it appears to be more of a 1950s style bridge, perhaps build when the D&NE moved to diesel locomotives.