photo by Sue Rakers
St. Louis’ Eads Bridge is among the most iconic structures of the city. As the world’s first steel, arch bridge, Eads impresses in both form and function (though it was not first, it is now the oldest bridge across the Mississippi River). In 2024, the Bridge turned 150 years old, so of course, we wanted to pay a visit.
photo by Irene Griggs
photo by Cathy Ray
photo by Yvonne Suess
photo by Nancy Williams
“I have haunted the river every night lately, where I could get a look at the bridge by moonlight. It is indeed a structure of perfection and beauty unsurpassable, and I never tire of it.” -Walt Whitman about the Eads Bridge, 1879
Of course, many creative people have expressed similar sentiments over the years, including the photographers gathered in this article, but it may not at first be clear why St. Louis needed to span the Mississippi River when it did. After all, St. Louis was America’s premier inland port throughout most of the 19th Century.
So, let’s dig in.
“We live in extraordinary times, and are called upon to elevate ourselves to the grandeur of the occasion… God had placed the Father of Floods [to pass through St. Louis], so let it be with this great road… a band of Iron[sic], hooping and binding the States together east and west…a cement of union north and south.”
Thomas Hart Benton delivered the portion of a speech above to a capacity audience compiled inside the Courthouse in October of 1849. Nearby, the ruins from the recent Great Fire likely still scented the air with burnt lumber, and the mood of the city was for rebirth. Benton’s decision to stage a railroad convention in St. Louis was precipitated by some of the traction he had gained in presenting the idea of a transcontinental railroad to Washington. New York interests, led by Asa Whitney, were already lobbying for such a route, and Benton saw no reason why Missouri should not capitalize on the venture. Certainly, the cooperation of a southern identified state (Missouri) to northern business interests on the east coast fit with the unifying theme spelled out in his Missouri Compromise of 1820. However, a series of unforeseen events followed in the wake of Old Bullion’s pontificating that would both reduce his influence in the District of Columbia, and pace St. Louis significantly behind another Midwestern city in constructing the railroad.
On May 30, 1854, the Kansas-Nebraska Act passed through legislation in Washington, D.C.. This Act, perpetuated by the nativist, Know-Nothing Party and National Democrats (Benton opposed), concerned the new territories of Kansas and Nebraska, and exacerbated the slavery debate in Missouri and elsewhere. The Know-Nothings wished to preserve “pure” American interests, and saw the recent influx of Catholic immigrants from Ireland and Germany (who they also viewed as political agitators) as an affront to their way of life. For them, the Kansas-Nebraska Act offered the solace of majority rule, and the potential exclusion or limitation of new immigrants. Meanwhile, the National Democrats, led by Illinois Senator Stephen Douglas, who had penned the 1854 legislation, felt that Congress lacked the constitutional right to limit the expansion of slavery. The Act overturned Benton’s 1820 legislation preventing the expansion of slavery north of 36.5° latitude, and instead proposed that all new territories should decide issues like slavery for themselves, a political belief known as popular sovereignty. Thomas Hart Benton’s vocal opposition to the Kansas-Nebraska Act culminated in his defeat at the polls of 1854. During the same election period, riots erupted from “Battle Row”, an Irish tenement enclave near the St. Louis levee, and spread throughout downtown as nativists sought to prevent immigrants from voting. Both locally and nationally, nativist politics won out, and many entered into prominent positions in governing bodies. Close to home, violence and turmoil began to erupt along the Missouri-Kansas border as opponents from both sides of the slavery issue fought a bloody battle for control of the future state. Those who had invested in the dream of a transcontinental railroad running through Missouri, saw much of the track they had recently built in the western part of the state destroyed, as the border fight raged also against infrastructure. In 1854, the Bentonite vision of a politically unified Missouri extending its transportation empire to new technologies was like two snakes arranged in a circle, eating each other by the tail first.
photo by Dennis Daugherty
photo by Joe Rakers
photo by RJ Wilner
Despite the setbacks caused by ongoing skirmishes between the pro-slavery Border Ruffians and the anti-slavery Jayhawkers, St. Louis’ railroad effort seemed about to achieve a major success in 1855. On November 1, 1855, a train, departed from St. Louis, was meant to arrive in Jefferson City. This occasion was to be a testament to the forward march of the transcontinental railroad, which had been the reason for the newly completed route. Therefore, the jubilant spectators who had gathered to celebrate the arrival were horrified to learn that the train had suffered a bridge collapse over the Gasconade River. Thirteen of fourteen cars and the steam engine derailed when a temporary trestle gave way, plunging much of it into the cold river during a heavy rain. Even more disconcerting was the amount of the city’s elite who were onboard among the between 600 to 800 passengers at the time. In the ensuing years, construction of new track was met with some resistance by those who felt hesitant because of the disaster. Many felt that, if a bridge could fail over the spindly Gasconade, how could a span across the mighty Mississippi River ever be safe? Also, railroad interests in Missouri were much more focused on traversing the route west than on connections to the east, which was an investment later proved to be its own sort of train wreck.
As railroad construction continued across the state, the carnage along the border with Kansas reached epic proportions. “Bleeding Kansas”, as the conflict was called by the New York Tribune, had escalated in bloodshed and property destruction, proving to be an effective barrier to the Missouri-Pacific Railroad’s western route. John Greenleaf Whittier, a poet, wrote of Bleeding Kansas in his poem, “Le Marais Du Cygne”:
A BLUSH as of roses
Where rose never grew!
Great drops on the bunch-grass,
But not of the dew!
A taint in the sweet air
For wild bees to shun!
A stain that shall never
Bleach out in the sun!
The violence would continue along the border and delay rail production until 1858. By this time, railroad interests in Chicago had successfully traversed the Mississippi at Rock Island, Illinois, and had vigorously begun their race through to the west. Eastern investors controlled the Chicago-based ventures, which had already connected to New York City by rail and shared a waterway through the Great Lakes. Missouri railroad backers began to realize that the cost of railroad construction was one mired by debt, and not likely to profit until fully complete. Many local companies went belly-up as a result. Those that remained were further delayed in their investment by the political and social disarray caused by the eruption of the Civil War in the state. The lack of a direct connection to eastern terminals, and the persistent disruption over slavery within Missouri placed local railroad magnates irrecoverably behind their Chicago peers.
Frederick Oakes Sylvester, American, 1869–1915; The Bridge, 1903; oil on canvas; 38 1/4 x 48 inches; Saint Louis Art Museum, Gift of Robert R. Corbett 8:1981
The magnificent Eads Bridge was finally built across the Mississippi River at St. Louis, almost twenty years after the bridge at Rock Island. By this time, Eads was too little and too late to capitalize fully on the national fervor over the transcontinental railroad. Even so, the New York City robber baron, Jay Gould, quickly purchased Eads, thus ensuring that St. Louis would remain on the periphery of Chicago in terms of railroad freight. Indeed, all roads would lead through Chicago, not as Benton had predicted. As time wore on, St. Louis would continue to fall further and further behind the “Jewel of the Great Lakes;” an empire fading amid the gleam of a distant glow.
photo by Sue Rakers
photo by James Palmour
photo by Caren Libby
Emil Boehl, American (born Germany), 1839–1919; copy negative by Richard Henry Fuhrmann, American, 1880–1937; Construction of Eads Bridge, 1903; Missouri Historical Society, Richard Fuhrmann Collection P0764-00508-4a
Though Eads Bridge may have come too late to cement victory to St. Louis in its early competition for railroad primacy with Chicago, it still marks a milestone for the city, and a magnificent one at that.
Spanning the Mississippi River at St. Louis posed certain challenges that Victorian engineers weren’t agreed upon in how to solve. These included the depth of the main channel and the degree of shifting sediment built-up upon the bedrock (in some places the bedrock was more than 120 feet below the water level, with more than 100 feet of sand layered upon it), and the fluctuating width of the River, which expanded significantly during major flooding. To this complex problem entered, St. Louisan and engineering autodidact, James Buchanan Eads.
Eads had previously cut his teeth in the river salvage industry. During this time, he invented a diving bell (which he himself used) and other contraptions for extracting sunken boats and items from the swift currents, snags and treacherous sediment in the depths of the moody Mississippi, and boasted a considerable fortune from doing so. His reputation also soared; Eads was even awarded the honorary title of “Captain” by his riverboat men peers. During the Civil War, Eads envisioned a design for an armored ship and was awarded a contract from the Federal Government to build them in Carondelet (now The Patch) at its Carondelet Marine Railway and Dock Company (known as the Union Iron-Works when under lease by Eads) near the base of Marceau Street. Eads’ first ironclad vessel (and the first in the United States), the USS Carondelet, was put into service in 1861. Ironclad and plated ships constructed by Eads were instrumental in keeping the Mississippi River free from Confederate control. Of the two dozen, ironclad ships in service during the war, nearly half were constructed at Eads’ facility.
In 1865, the now internationally-esteemed James B. Eads submitted his proposal for a bridge across the Mississippi River at St. Louis–a proposal that many engineers at the time thought was impossible to achieve (after all, nearly 1 in 4 bridges of the time failed). However, Eads’ unique strength was in his firsthand knowledge of the river itself. Eads understood that, due the degree of shifting sediment involved, a bridge would need to rest on bedrock in order to support its massive span. Eads also understood his own limitations, and hired German-trained engineers and mathematicians from nearby Washington University to assist him with his calculations and design. His steel arch design incorporated four pairs of steel tubes, or ribs, to support each span. Though a commonplace building material now, steel was, at the time, unproven.
Though construction of the west abutment began in 1867, it was not until after a trip to France in 1868 that Eads conceived of a solution to the supports that would be needed to hold up the bridge superstructure as well as reach down to the bedrock below. Eads employed a pneumatic caisson system, which he had observed used in Europe on a smaller scale. For the Eads Bridge caissons, a sand extraction pump was designed so that the sediment could be moved out as levels of the caisson were sunk until bedrock was reached. Many workers at depth experienced caisson disease, or The Bends, which was first identified in St. Louis during the Bridge’s construction, but not fully understood until later on. This resulted in 15 deaths and more than 70 injuries.
Construction of the arches was overseen by Pittsburgh’s Keystone Bridge Company (know owned by American Bridge Company), and the first closed archway was achieved in 1873. On July 2, 1874, fourteen locomotives (seven on each track) full of water and coal were ran back and forth across the completed railway to test the strength of the structure. They paused over the center of each span. Eads Bridge officially opened two days later to city fanfare. In all, Eads Bridge has three arch spans, the east/west ones are 502′ while the center one is 520′, and extends 6,444′ in total length (including approaches).
photo by Jason Gray
photo by James Palmour
photo by Nancy Williams
“As the strength of the arch is dependent upon its form, it is necessary to adopt such means as will preserve it in shape under all trials to which it may be subjected.” -James B. Eads, from Arch and Truss Bridges, 1868
It is almost impossible to conceive, but even much-beloved structures of grand design and function sometimes experience times of trial. Following the Bridges’ completion, the East Coast-aligned railroads boycotted it (part of the effort to keep goods and services flowing through Chicago). In just four years the company managing the Bridge was forced into bankruptcy and the Eads Bridges was placed up for auction. The $10-million structure (by some estimates higher than $12-million) sold for a measly $2-million, and was leased to New York rail baron, Jay Gould. In 1889, the lease was transferred to the Terminal Railroad Association of St. Louis in an effort to reduce and control the costs of crossing the River, which still owns it today. Nonetheless, this was a major setback to St. Louis’ already behind rail prospects.
Richard Henry Fuhrmann, American, 1880–1937; Tornado Damage to Eads Bridge, 1896; Missouri Historical Society, Richard Fuhrmann Collection P0764-00695-4a
On May 27, 1896, an F4 tornado (one of the deadliest and most destructive in American history) crossed the southern and central portions of St. Louis city and struck the Eads Bridge before passing over into Illinois. Nearly 300′ of masonry was destroyed and the east approach arcade supporting the upper deck needed to be reconstructed. A lighter-colored stone was used for this reconstruction which can still be seen today. This was the second tornado to hit the Bridge; it was also struck in 1871 during construction.
It would probably be unsurprising to most people to learn that Eads Bridge has been struck by a boat or two in its 150-year history, but the real truth is that this has happened many more times. Among the most famous of them is the 1998 collision of the towboat Anne Holly and its 14 barges, which struck the central Missouri-side pier. Afterward, several of the barges broke free and damaged the former SS Admiral steamboat which had been moored to the St. Louis levee. As a result, 2,500 people had to be shuttled by rescue boats from the Admiral, and the steamboat was eventually dismantled for scrap. More recently, the towboat Legacy crashed into the Bridge in 2019. This led the Coast Guard to shutdown a 5-mile section of river traffic at the time.
photo by Diane Sieckmann
photo by Irene Griggs
Today, Eads Bridge may be overshadowed in its grandeur by the Gateway Arch, but even this landmark would somehow seem less majestic were the Bridge not anchoring the north end of the National Park. Certainly, a trip to the riverfront, with its nostalgia-steeped steamboat excursions would be far less interesting if the Bridge weren’t there to provide its enthralling backdrop. If seeing Eads isn’t enough, however, you can say ‘Happy Birthday’ by crossing it in three different ways, by foot, by car or by train (Metrolink).
photo by Jen Smith
photo by Joe Rakers
photo by RJ Wilner
photo by Nancy Williams