As indicated by a builder's plate on the bridge itself, the structure was erected in 1901 by the John Gilligan Company of Falls City, Nebraska. Marketed extensively by virtually all of the in-state bridge contractors and promoted in the form of standardized designs by the Nebraska State Engineer's office, the pinned Pratt pony truss was used widely by Nebraska's counties to carry roads over the state's myriad small streams. Thousands of such small-scale trusses were erected across the state in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, and many remain today. The Little Nemaha River Bridge, located near Syracuse, is technologically significant as one of the earliest examples in Nebraska of this common type, and is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.