Crossing the Mississippi River without the Lansing bridge
The Black Hawk Bridge connecting Iowa and Crawford County in southwest Wisconsin is closing as its replacement is constructed, leaving residents in both states hustling to cross the Mississippi River.
By Erica Ayisi | Here & Now
July 24, 2025 • Southwest Region
The Black Hawk Bridge between Iowa and Crawford County in southwest Wisconsin is closing.
Imagine you’re running late for work, but you have to take a water taxi or ferry over a river instead of driving over a bridge. That’s what will confront people in southwestern Wisconsin when the bridge over the Mississippi River that connects DeSoto in Crawford County to Lansing, Iowa is removed in October until its replacement is constructed by 2027.
The Lansing bridge, which is also named the Black Hawk Bridge has been under repair while still in use, but will close altogether in October 2025 as its replacement is finished.
Closure, demolition and rebuilding are the new plans for the historic Black Hawk Bridge.
“The initial plan for the new bridge was that the old Black Hawk Bridge would remain open until the new bridge was completed,” said Timothy Gillespie, president of the village of De Soto in Crawford County.
But that plan has changed. Gillespie said the announcement of the bridge’s upcoming demolition has residents worried about crossing the Mississippi River into Lansing, Iowa.
“The Black Hawk Bridge will have to be closed in October, and so it’ll be about two years before the new bridge is ready,” he explained.
The new bridge is being constructed along the existing bridge. According to the Iowa Department of Transportation and Wisconsin Department of Transportation, the east side of the existing bridge is posing a risk to the new bridge’s completion.
“They said it’s becoming a safety issue. They have to continue to drive the pilings down, and so it’s going to weaken, they think, the existing bridge, and then it’ll become a safety issue, a hazard,” explained Gillespie.
The livelihood of local businesses on both sides of the river are at stake.
“There’s just going to be a very negative effect on a lot of businesses, not only in DeSoto, but certainly in Lansing, Ferryville, Genoa, Harper’s Ferry, New Alvin, Iowa — all of those communities are going to be affected by this,” Gillespie added.
The bridge has been closed temporarily in the past. How were passengers impacted during those times?
“They had a people ferry that they started, and that was working pretty well,” said Gillespie. “It’s still pretty difficult for people to use a people’s ferry to get to work.”
A people ferry and car ferry could help business owners like Owen Buckmaster sustain his Lansing restaurant The Buck Stops Here with Wisconsin customers.
]”Just give them the option, and more people would want to be involved and indulge in that car ferry opposed to just shuttling, busing and getting chucked across the river,” Buckmaster said.
Transportation officials are exploring a car ferry service, but Gillespie said it will not meet the daily demand of cars crossing the bridge.
“They’re only going to be able to bring 12, 14 cars at a time over, and that’s certainly not going to take the place of the traffic that was on the Black Hawk Bridge,” Gillespie said.
Justin Shepard of Shep’s Riverside Bar & Grill says customers need multiple river crossing plans for businesses to stay afloat – especially through winter.
“As far as business goes, they’ll run a shuttle hopefully until the ice comes through and then after the ice is in, we don’t really know how that’s going to work because they don’t have a plan in place for that either,” Shepard said.
The next closest bridge is U.S. Highway 18 — connecting McGregor, Iowa to Prairie du Chien — about 45 minutes away from the Lansing-De Soto bridge crossing.
“There’s also a medical clinic over in Lansing, and so if we can’t get over there, then the people are going to have to go to Prairie de Chien or La Crosse, which is 30 miles in either direction,” said Gillespie.
Motorists will have to wait until 2027 to hear if the new bridge has signature singing sound, and its Indigenous name reference to Chief Black Hawk will remain the same, as Gillespie and other area village presidents seek government aid.
“We’re going to look for some kind of a federal or state aid to help support the loss of revenue that’s going to occur,” he said. “Hopefully, we can get some assistance.”
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