It was at Awatoto and enabled access to Meeanee and Taradale, and was only used for around 10 years as the creek it spanned silted up.
Many requests for bridges were made to the Hawke's Bay Provincial Council from 1859 and then the Hawke's Bay County Council from 1876.
One group who desperately wanted a bridge from the Hawke's Bay County Council were those across the Tuki Tuki River in the Waimarama riding area.
In 1902 a bridge was finally agreed to be built by the Hawke's Bay County Council over the Tuki River (and today is the Red Bridge).
Farmer, T R Moore, however, objected to the process of support for the bridge.
A petition had been received by the council requesting a bridge, but T R Moore believed it should be disregarded due to those who had signed it such as "maids, men, swaggers and non-ratepayers".
He stated it was a "put-up job" especially as 187 natives had signed the petition and that number had not lived in the area "for 29 years".
Hawke's Bay County Councillor John Chambers stated that T R Moore wanted the bridge until he found he had to pay for it through a special rate.
T R Moore denied this and said he was willing to "contribute along certain lines", but was concerned about the authenticity of the petition.
The majority of the land in the Waimarama riding area was owned by Maori and leased to Europeans.
Under the 1901 Local Body Loans Act, a legal opinion received by the Hawke's Bay Council indicated a special rate could not be levied on the Maori landowners if the land reverted to them after leases to Europeans expired.
This was because the native lands was less than two thirds of the rateable value of all rateable properties in the area.
The Hawke's Bay County Council assessed the risk that this might occur and the special rate becoming the liability of a few European settlers.
However, it believed it was highly unlikely that the "leases in the Waimarama district would ever revert to the natives, and would continue to be held by Europeans".
When the 1260ft long (384m) single-lane Waimarama Bridge opened in early 1904, ironbark (hard wood from eucalyptus trees) piles covered with 95lb (43kg) of iron had been driven 6m below the bed of the river through papa rock (soft, blue-grey mud stone) to support the bridge which was mostly built in kauri.
The contractor was James Sellars and the engineers were Kennedy Bros and Morgan, with the contract price being £5736 (2017: $1 million).
Included in this price was half a mile (800m) of road and two smaller bridges on each side of the main bridge.
James Sellars had planned to finish the bridge in seven months, but a number of "freshes" (strong river flows) delayed this to 14 months, including having his scaffolding being carried away twice.
The European settlers in the area agreed to a special rate on £3200 ($558,000) of the £5736 contract price.
The Waimarama Bridge lasted 46 years before being replaced by the now concrete-reinforced 329m long and 7m wide Red Bridge, which was opened in December 1950 at a cost of £90,000 ($6.5 million).
• Michael Fowler (mfhistory@gmail.com) is an EIT accounting lecturer, and in his spare time a recorder of Hawke's Bay's history.
