Shepard Road/Warner Road - Routing

Routing

From the west, Shepard Road starts at Minnesota State Highway 5 on the east bank of the Mississippi River at the east end of the Fort Road Bridge, directly across the river from Fort Snelling. This fort, now in Fort Snelling State Park, was the first permanent Euro-American settlement in Minnesota at the Mississippi's confluence with the Minnesota River. The road curves from east-southeast to east by northeast on the river bluffs above Pike Island in the Mississippi, where Lieutenant Zebulon Pike purchased from the Mdewakanton tribe land on which Fort Snelling later was built. The island was the site of a prison camp for Indians captured in the Dakota War of 1862 and now part of Fort Snelling State Park. Adjacent to the park to the east and adjoining the road is Crosby Regional Park, a Saint Paul city park on the river bottom maintained as a nature area.

Continuing northeast, the road passes under the Lexington Bridge which carries Interstate 35E over the Mississippi. From that intersection to Warner Road's eastern terminus it is part of the National Highway System and is also a segment of the Great River Road.

The road passes over the approach track to the Omaha Road Bridge Number 15, railroad swing bridge across the Mississippi. The road curves inland as it descends from the bluffs to the riverbank near downtown Saint Paul; it was relocated inland to make way for riverfront development. Along the way it passes under the High Bridge.

As the road reaches downtown it rejoins the river bank and is located atop the levee where steamboats once stopped and where the city began. Here it passes under a succession of bridges, the Wabasha Street Bridge, St. Paul Union Pacific Vertical-lift Rail Bridge, the Robert Street Bridge, and east of the city center, the Lafayette Bridge.

In downtown, next to the Saint Paul Union Depot, the road's name changes from Shepard Road to Warner Road. As Warner Road heads east, it is located between former station tracks of the depot and the Mississippi. The road southeast between the Mississippi and Indian Mounds Park, a burial ground for Native Americans in Pre-contact times. The road turns to the east to its end at US Highways 61 and 10.