For over ninety years, residents of this area were served by a large steel truss bridge that crossed the Milk River just northeast of here. Built in 1911 by the Illinois Steel Bridge Company of Jacksonville, Illinois, the structure was one of at least six bridges built by the firm in Valley County between 1910 and 1913. This bridge conveyed ranchers and homesteaders living north of the river to the community of Tampico. Established as a water stop on the Great Northern Railway's main line in the late 1890s, Tampico boomed with the arrival of hundreds of homesteaders to the area beginning in 1910. At its height about 1917, Tampico boasted a population of over 50 people and a substantial business district. By the early Twenties, the town was located on the Theodore Roosevelt International Highway, a route that was eventually re-named U.S. Highway 2. A 1921 guidebook to the highway stated there were good camping sites along the Milk River on the north side of the road near the old bridge. The old highway still exists as a county road on the northeast side of the railroad tracks.

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Liquid Gold
H. Earl Clack Service Station

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