Foot passengers paid a dollar each for the privilege of crossing the bridge, while teams were charged at the rate"of from $5.00 to S10.00. The tolls collected on the day of the opening of the bridge amounted to more than $10,000, and for several years the bridge was a mint for its owner and' a great convenience to the restless pioneers who struggled for gold and gain in the unexplored fastnesses of the great west.

The following account was written by Mr. Clarke a few years ago for an illustrated card designed to preserve the facts connected with the early history of his locality:

"In 1875, at the solicitation of the merchants and others of Omaha, in order to get a short route into the Black Hills to secure the travel and trade, Henry T. Clarke put in this bridge. The bridge spans the North Platte river three miles west of the present town of Bridgeport and nine miles east of Chimney Rock (an old landmark, and sixty miles east of Ft. Laramie, the nearest bridge crossing). It has sixty-one spans and was made extra strong in order to carry the heavy mining machinery. The timber was framed at Davenport, Iowa, and Moline, Illinois, in 1875. There was one house between Sidney and the bridge, a distance of fifty miles, and one house between Camp Clarke and Camp Robinson (the Red Cloud Sioux Indian Agency), seventy miles distant. This was a Sioux and Chevenne Indian country prior to the treaties. Mr. Clarke asked the government for protection. They furnished him a plan for Fort Clarke, which he built for the government: at its completion the War Department placed troops there. This was on the north end of the bridge, so that the range would take in the whole of the bridge.