The Intriguing Tale Behind Duluth’s Grassy Point Bridge & Its Stuffed Animals
I honestly don't know how I haven't heard about this before, but there is a bridge in Duluth, Minnesota that has a bunch of stuffed animals nailed to it. What's the deal with this?
I saw it today when I was on Duluth's Reddit page. Someone posted a question to the page asking what's up with the hung stuffed animals on the side of the bridge on the St. Louis River.
The bridge we're talking about is the Grassy Point Bridge, which is a rotating railroad bridge that connects Duluth and Superior, Wisconsin.
Northlandia did a podcast on this last year talking about how long it's been going on. Apparently a bridge operator started putting dolls and other things up there in 1995. The tradition has been carried on by boaters and kayakers. At one point there actually were mannequins on the bridge. Talk about weird, right?
You can listen to the podcast on Spotify in episode 24 titled "The Mysterious Toy Graveyard Along The St. Louis River."
In 2012, The Duluth News Tribune reached out to one of the BNSF former bridge operators and asked about how it got started. He identified the bridge operator as Rick Mcdonald who started the tradition. Rick had passed away a few years before the 2012 interview. Rick would get the stuffed animals from Goodwill and put them up there. Then other boaters started putting up their own stuffed animals.
Read More: The Real Reason Menards Has Turnstiles At Their Entrances
The company would ask him what was going on and who were putting up the stuffed animals, and the bridge operator would just play dumb and pretend he didn't know what was going on.
It's a weird piece of history on the St. Louis River and a tradition that continues today.
LOOK: 25 must-visit hidden gems from across the US
Gallery Credit: Abby Monteil