To quiet the suit, Congress appropriated $20,000 (another source says $20,500) to pay the bridge's investors. The bridge company used some of this money to rebuild, and a wooden bascule span bridge reopened in the same spot in 1815. Now often called the Pennsylvania Avenue Bridge, it operated as a toll bridge from 1815 to 1841. It deteriorated over time, and in 1841 was closed to vehicular traffic (but remained open for foot traffic). In 1846, a steamship attempting to go up the Anacostia became wedged in the draw span. Sparks from the ship's funnel ignited the bridge, and it burned to the water line. For many years thereafter, the pilings of the old bridge could be seen when the water level in the river was low. No bridge connected the east and west ends of Pennsylvania Avenue SE over the Anacostia River between 1845 and 1890. Benning Bridge, erected upstream in 1805, and the 11th Street Bridges, built downstream in 1820, also carried vehicular and foot traffic over the Ancostia. But the Uniontown "suburb" was platted in the Anacostia area in 1854, and development slowly began to turn the agricultural land into businesses and residences. The destruction of the Eastern Branch Bridge in 1846, however, significantly slowed growth in the area for five decades. About 1871, a real estate development known as "East Washington Heights" began. Citizens in the area wanted a bridge to reconnect "their" Pennsylvania Avenue (which ran through the center of their neighborhoods) with the Pennsylvania Avenue "in the city". Building a new bridge over the Anacostia River only slowly became an issue for them, and it was not until 1875 that the EWCA began agitating for one. A new bridge, the EWCA pointed out, would save residents of East Washington in travel every time they visited the city center on the other side of the river. On February 19, 1886, the EWCA formed a committee to lobby the Commissioners of the District of Columbia (the city government) and Congress on the issue. Later that year, Representative Barnes Compton (D-Maryland) introduced legislation in Congress to build a $60,000 bridge of wood on wooden piers. But the Compton bill was strongly opposed by the D.C. Commissioners. The legislation required that the city pay half the cost of the structure, and Commissioner Samuel E. Wheatley led the city government in adamantly refusing to support the bill.