Construction of Centre Street Bridge Calgary 1916

Built by The City of Calgary in 1916 for $375,000, Centre Street Bridge replaced the MacArthur Bridge, a steel truss bridge built in 1907 and destroyed by a flood in 1915.

Centre Street Bridge was designed by John F. Green, and features an upper and lower deck, cantilevered balconies on the upper deck, and four large cast concrete lions atop two pairs of ornamental concrete pavilions flanking each end of the bridge. The lions were cast by Scottish mason James L. Thomson. They were modelled after the bronze lions by Landseer at the base of Nelson's Column in Trafalgar Square, London.

The pavilions are ornamented with symbols of Canada and the United Kingdom: buffalo heads, maple leaves, shamrocks (Ireland), roses (England), and thistles (Scotland).