Early Years
Travelers roaring across the northern plains states during the Roaring Twenties would have come to a screeching halt at the Missouri River, if it were not for the progressive thinking of the American Automobile Association and the U.S. Government Office of the Good Roads.
A massive road-building effort in the United States created the first sketchy network of the federal highway system that decades later become the Interstate Highway system.

About 1912, a rough system of highways was laid out, including what was called the Red Trail which ran across North Dakota. Later, it would become known as Highway 10, and eventually would be replaced by Interstate 94.

However, in the early part of the 20th century, traveling across North Dakota was difficult if not impossible. Rivers created a natural barrier at places such as Valley City with the Sheyenne River, The Badlands with the Little Missouri River.

One of the most difficult barriers to cross because of its unpredictable variance in depth and breadth was the Missouri River. In the dead of winter, vehicles could cross on the ice, but it wasn’t so easy in the spring or fall though when ice floes prevented safe crossing. In the summer, when the river was clear, ferries would haul vehicles across the water, but that could mean a 3 or 4-hour wait for drivers. It is reported that as many as 10,000 vehicles a year tried one way or another to successfully cross the Missouri River.

If travelers didn’t want to put up with the unpredictable river crossing at Bismarck they would have to drive to the nearest bridge at either Great Falls, Montana or Sioux City Iowa – more than 500 miles either direction.

A bridge is built -- 1919
In 1919, the State of North Dakota, Burleigh and Morton County and the federal government set out to build a bridge at Bismarck. A three-span Warren-Turner through-truss design was designed and in 1920 contracts for the bridge and approaches were awarded.

A site was selected a few hundred yards downstream from the Northern Pacific Railroad Bridge. The solid piers of the railroad bridge were eyed as protectors for the vehicular bridge. If the narrow-spanned railroad bridge could break up ice floes, the chunks would then pass more easily through the wide spanned vehicular bridge.

According to the Liberty Memorial Bridge Historic American Engineering Record submitted to the Department of the Interior:

	The structure required a year and a half to construct and was opened for traffic in August 1922.
	Total cost of this bridge, the longest in North Dakota, was approximately $1,375,000.
	On 18th of September 1922, the 50th anniversary of the founding of Bismarck, the bridge was formally dedicated with over 12,000 people in attendance.
	The bridge was christened the Liberty Memorial Bridge in honor of the North Dakota World War I soldiers.
	In honor of the opening of the Liberty Memorial Bridge, a three-day gala was held in Bismarck and Mandan with parades, dances and pageant produced by the Thurston Management Company of Minneapolis.
	The Bismarck Association of Commerce observed that in addition to allowing faster and greater convenience of travel, the bridge opened a new avenue to livestock and agriculture in the western part of the state.
	The bridge also encouraged travel across North Dakota on the National Parks Highway.
	For the fist time, it was possible to travel from coast to coast without having to cross a river by ferry.