 Of that, $5,000 was allocated for a road from Mendota to Wabasha, on the west bank of the Mississippi River.The Mendota to Wabasha road was surveyed and marked by the Corps of Topographical Engineers in 1851 and 1853, but work on the section at the Cannon River did not begin until after 1854, when money was available to build a causeway and a main bridge across the river bottoms.Captain James H. Simpson contracted with Thomas J. Frazier in December 1854 to build a truss bridge, which was finished by September 1855.