Dufourbrücke, road bridge

The Dufourbrücke was a temporary road bridge across the Rhine in Basel, built in 1857. It connected the two banks at a location about 100 meters above today's Wettsteinbrücke and relied on anchored river boats as supports to maintain stability.

The bridge was built in just eight days in 1857 during a political crisis to enable military troop movements across the Rhine. It was dismantled in March of that year once the tension had eased.

Nothing of the bridge survives, so there is no structure to visit. Its site lay at the former Harzgraben, roughly 100 metres upstream of today's Wettsteinbrücke, where the banks can be reached on foot along the Rhine.

Because the Rhine's current was too strong for the anchors to hold, a rope was stretched across the river to secure the pontoon boats. The Bernese engineer Gottlieb Ott took part in the construction, which lasted eight days. The bridge stood only from January to March 1857, yet Baslers had grown used to the crossing and missed it after it was dismantled.