 Its construction, begun in 1904, was carried out by the K. Rudzki i S-ka company and supervised by engineers Mieczysław Marszewski and Wacław Paszkowski.Kazimierz Ołdakowski was another engineer who worked on the bridge, before he took over the directorship of Fabryka Broni.Despite being viewed by many as an extravagance (opponents of its construction included the then mayor of Warsaw and the writer Bolesław Prus), it was opened on January 6, 1914, by the Russian Governor General, Georgi Skalon, as Warsaw's "third" bridge; hence it was nicknamed "third bridge" (Polish