The Allegheny was first crossed at this point by a wooden bridge, built in 1856. This was replaced by the Sharpsburg Bridge in 1901, which was itself replaced in 1962, as it was deemed too narrow for the traffic volume that it carried.
The current bridge was completed on July 1, 1962, and is named for Robert D. Fleming, a former Republican Pennsylvania state senator whose district included portions of Pittsburgh's northeastern suburbs. It was built alongside and just upstream from the old bridge and consists of sixteen individual spans, including a 1,054-foot-long (321 m) four-span truss channel unit, with a 400-foot-long (120 m) span over the river and a 494-foot-long (151 m) three-span girder section with a 227-foot-long (69 m) central span over the railroad.[2]
A 200-foot-long (61 m) section of the bridge buckled when the Crescent Supply Co. warehouse beneath it was destroyed by fire on May 28, 1981.[3] The bridge was reopened in January 1983.
