‘The Mystery of the Bloomfield Bridge’ – Six Colors

Tyler Vigen was curious:

This pedestrian bridge crosses I-494 just west of the Minneapolis Airport. It connects Bloomington to Richfield. I drive under it often and I wondered: why is it there? It’s not in an area that is particularly walkable, and it doesn’t connect any establishments that obviously need to be connected. So why was it built?

Thus begins a journey that goes to a whole lot of places, including this, my favorite passage in the entire article:

While I am dedicated to this search, I am not about to fly down to Kansas City to dig through federal archives, especially when those documents may or may not be there…

…just kidding. Of course I flew down to Kansas City to dig through the federal archives!

This is a great story that also shows the power of dogged research.

—Linked by Jason Snell