The Waibaidu Bridge (), called the Garden Bridge in English, is the first all-steel bridge, and the only surviving example of a camelback truss bridge, in China. The present bridge is the fourth Western-designed bridge built at its location since 1856, in the downstream of the estuary of the Suzhou Creek (formerly known as Wusong or Soochow Creek), near its confluence with the Huangpu River, adjacent to the Bund in central Shanghai. It connects the Huangpu and Hongkou districts and was opened on 20 January 1908. With its rich history and unique design the Waibaidu Bridge is one of the symbols of Shanghai. Its modern and industrial image may be regarded as the city's landmark bridge. On 15 February 1994 the Shanghai Municipal Government declared the bridge an example of Heritage Architecture, and one of the outstanding structures in Shanghai. In an ever-changing metropolis, the Waibaidu Bridge still remains a popular attraction, and one of the few constants in the city skyline.
Etymology
There is considerable debate about the exact meaning of Waibaidu (外白渡), the name given to the wooden bridge erected by the Shanghai Municipal Council in 1873. According to one source, "The upper stream of any river was called li 裡 (internal, inside); the lower stream was called “wai”." Xue Liyong (薛理勇), indicates in his book on the history of the Bund: In several cases, the Chinese used the terms li 裡 (internal) and wai 外 (external) to indicate the greater (nei) or lesser (wai) degree of proximity of a location. There was even an intermediate degree with the use of zhong 中 (middle) for places located between these two extremes. There remains several place names in Shanghai that are linked to this practice. The Chinese name of the Garden Bridge – waibaidu qiao 外白渡橋 – is such a case. The name makes sense only in relation with another bridge called libaidu qiao 裡白渡橋 that was located further inside the Soochow Creek, whereas the Garden Bridge was located at the mouth of the creek where it merges into the Huangpu river.
Another source indicates that in Shanghainese, waibaidu means passing through the bridge without paying. Because there was no longer any toll collected to cross the bridge, it began to be called Waibaidu, but "whereas the old name meant 'foreigners/outer ferry crossing bridge' the character bai was changed to a homophonic that altered the meaning to 'outer free crossing bridge'".
History
Before bridges were built over the Suzhou Creek (then known as the Wusong River), citizens had to use one of three ferry crossings: one near Zhapu Road, one at Jiangxi Road, and one near the mouth of the Suzhou River. These crossings (du in Chinese) were the only way to ford the river, until the construction of a sluice gate built in the Ming dynasty, later known as "Old Sluice", where the current Fujian Road bridge is located. During the Qing dynasty, another sluice bridge ("New Sluice") was constructed during the reign of the Yongzheng Emperor (1723–1735), near the location of today's Datong Road bridge.
With Shanghai becoming an international trade port through the Treaty of Nanjing in 1842, and foreign powers being granted concessions in the city, traffic between both sides of Suzhou River soared in the 1850s, increasing the need for a bridge close to the mouth of the river.
Wills' Bridge (1856-1871) In October 1856, a British businessman named Charles Wills, of the firm of Jardine, Matheson, and American Edward R. Cunningham (1823–1889), the "brilliant though somewhat impetuous" managing director of Russell & Co., Vice-Consul for the United States (1853) and also consul of the Consul of Sweden and Norway in Shanghai, with the finances provided by a consortium of twenty investors, called the Soochow Creek Bridge Company, the first company in China focusing mainly on bridge construction, constructed the first foreign bridge across the Suzhou Creek, at the location of the outermost ferry crossing to ease traffic between the British Settlement to the south, and the American Settlement to the north of Suzhou River. Built to replace a Chinese bridge that had collapsed in 1855, and "that the Chinese were unable to reconstruct", this new bridge, which soon became known as Wills' Bridge, was made entirely of wood, and "had a total length of 137.16 metres (450 feet) and width of 7.01 metres (23 feet)". It had a "draw" on the Hongkou side to allow larger boats to enter or exit Suzou Creek. According to Francis Pott, it was "not a very sightly structure."