This structure is remarkable.  It is the first large suspension bridge built in continental Europe,

following initial tests carried out in the United States and Great Britain.  It brings a major innovation, by replacing the forged chains traditionally used for British bridges with thin stell wire cables.

The Tournon-Tain suspension bridge brings back the possibility of crossing a river like the Rhône, with its strong currents and flash floods, with a permanent structure.

It is a light structure, quick to build, relatively inexpensive and requiring only a central pile and superstructures to support the suspensions.

In addition to the cable, it provides a set of innovative solutions that make it possible. The success of the new bridge is immediate, and its replication in the Rhône valley is rapid, with around ten new structures of this type in the following five years, between Lyon and the Mediterranean, then throughout France, Switzerland and Europe. In the United States as well.

The original historic bridge opened in 1825 between Tournon and Tain and had to be demolished in 1849 due to higher clearance required for the passage of the new steamboats. It was then replaced by a bridge of the same type, wider, which was built about a hundred meters downstream, by the same Marc Seguin and following the same technological principles. This is the current footbridge on which you are standing.

The foundations of the 1825 bridge were reused to establish a small raised footbridge which was long confused with the original bridge and which was definitively demolished in 1967.

Visual rendering of the 1825 Historical Bridge created by Archéovision and MCC-Heritage