Also right next to the railroad to the West side of the River Walk is the Shot Tower which has an interesting history contributing to our understanding of how lead shot amunition was made in the mid-19th Century. It is one of aobut 5 shot towers left in the United States.
The bridge remains, but you can no longer buy a 12 pack of Dubuque Star.
I have no clue about the shot tower but I rode across the bridge on a CB&Q fan trip on September 3, 1961. My story is not about the bridge itself, but of the curved tunnel leading up to the bridge on the Illinois side. The Q’s main hugged the east bank of the Mississippi and the IC’s main to Omaha came down the bluffs from the east, joining the Q for a bit before sharply curving off to the right, then piercing the bluff with a tightly curved left-bending tunnel to cross the main on a more or less 90° crossing, then enter the bridge. The trackage resembled a ? kinda tipped a bit to the right with the crossing and the bridge just to the left of the top end of the ? and the tunnel in the curved portion.
We did the WB thingy into Dubuque without incident, but the return was a bit different. A photo runby was schedued with Q’s 5632, their big 4-8-4 fantrip loco, and our 12-14 car train. We went thru the tunnel and stopped in E. Dubuque to let the fans off, then 5632 backed the train into the tunnel for a runby.
He went a ways back in there and came charging out, or tried to anyway. She stalled about a loco length outside the portal, right across the main highway thru townl. It took some 4 or so tries to make it thru, stalling (slipping wildly) in about the same spot every time. After about a half hour of trying, she finally made it. It was a very different runby to say the least.