Driving US-2 along the Lake Michigan shore, the trees suddenly drop away and for 641 feet you are rolling across the treetops, 147 feet above a river most drivers never even see. It is the Cut River Bridge, one of exactly two bridges like it in the entire state. Most people blast across in eleven seconds. The ones who stop discover the stairs, the beach, and a locked door under the east end with a brass plaque that reads T. Troll.
One of exactly two
The Cut River Bridge is a cantilevered steel deck truss, a design Michigan used exactly twice, here and on the Cooley Bridge over the Pine River downstate. Some 888 tons of riveted green steel hold the highway over the gorge, resting on abutments faced in decorative stone. Unusually for a highway bridge, it was deliberately designed as a scenic attraction, with sidewalks built in so people could walk out over the gorge and gawk at Lake Michigan.
The bridge the war stopped
Crews poured the piers in 1941 as part of rerouting US-2 along the shoreline, and then World War II arrived and froze every ton of steel in the country for the war effort. The half-born bridge stood waiting in the woods for years. The steel finally went up in 1943, the deck followed after the war, and the bridge opened to traffic in 1947, six years after the first shovel. Hardly anything in the U.P. says the 1940s like a bridge the war itself put on hold.
About that troll door
Tucked under the east end of the structure is a genuine office door, and someone at the highway department mounted a brass plaque on it: T. Troll. Every Yooper gets the joke instantly, since a troll, in U.P. speech, is anyone who lives below the bridge, meaning the entire Lower Peninsula. The Cut River Bridge just made it official with a nameplate. In 2014 the bridge also took on a serious and worthy name, the Heath M. Robinson Memorial Cut River Bridge, honoring a Navy SEAL from Michigan killed in Afghanistan in 2011.
Stop. Go under. Touch the lake.
Roadside parks guard both ends of the bridge with parking, picnic tables, and about 400 acres to roam. The move is simple: park, take the walkway under the east end, and start down the staircase, roughly 231 steps into the gorge. At the bottom, turn left and the Cut River walks you right out to its mouth on a Lake Michigan beach. Turn right and you get the postcard view, the whole green steel giant framed by the gorge overhead.
Walk back up slowly, everyone does. You can also stroll the sidewalk across the top, though there is no stopping for cars on the bridge itself. Fall is the showstopper here, when the gorge turns to fire under the green steel, and it is only about 25 miles northwest of St. Ignace, which makes it the single easiest great stop on a U.P. road trip.
Two bridges like it in the state, six years to build it, 231 steps beneath it, and a troll with his name on the door. Not bad for a spot most people cross in eleven seconds.
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Sources: Wikipedia ‘Cut River Bridge’; HistoricBridges.org; Michigan DOT roadside park signage; Upper Peninsula Travel and Recreation Association.
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