19th Century Mississippi River Bridges Series
Early Surveys of the Mississippi River indicated that the river between Clinton, Iowa, and Fulton, Illinois, had narrowed with Little Rock Island located between the shores. The Galena & Chicago Union Railroad started building a line from Chicago to the west and reached Dixon, Illinois, by 1854. At that time, they leased a line, the Mississippi & Rock River Junction Railroad, that ran easterly from Fulton to Dixon, which completed their line to the Mississippi River in late 1855. Meanwhile, the Chicago, Iowa & Nebraska Railroad was building track in Iowa, running from Clinton to the south and west, and reached Cedar Rapids by 1859.
Plans for a bridge across the river began when the Albany Railroad Bridge Company received a charter from the Illinois Legislature on February 14, 1857, for a bridge to be used by the Galena and Chicago Union Railroad. Its first engineer was William Jarvis McAlpine, a well-known New York Engineer. It was his brother Charles Legrand McAlpine, however, that submitted a report on June 23, 1858, for a bridge that looked at five different but close sites along with an estimate.
They began by building a wooden bridge from the Illinois shore in 1859 to Little Rock Island as that was not a navigable channel, and a low-level bridge 1,400-foot-long could be built. They chose McCallum Inflexible Arched Trusses, patented by David McCallum when he was associated with the New York and Erie railroad in the early 1850s.
The Clinton Herald described the spans as follows:
“The bridge commences on the east side of Little Rock Island at a point nearly opposite Lamb’s sawmill. The western abutment stands on the island and is to be of solid masonry, 26 feet in length at the base tapering to 22 feet at the top and 10 feet in thickness at the base tapering to 6 feet at the top. The distance across to the Illinois shore is 1,400 feet, which is divided into seven spans of 200 feet, each span resting on piers of solid masonry of the same dimension as those of the abutment described. Both the abutment and piers will be built on solid pile-work, being 73 piles for the foundation of each of the former and 59 piles for the foundation of each of the latter. The superstructure is to be that known as the “McCallum Patent Inflexible Arch Truss,” which is generally acknowledged as the best in use… The entire cost of the work, when completed, is estimated at $65,000.”
This portion of the bridge opened on February 20, 1860. It was built by the McCallum Bridge Company of Cincinnati and crossed the eastern branch of the Mississippi at a 74-degree-skew resulting in only a 160-foot clear space for any steamboat that used that branch. Trains would run out to the island, then over a 575-foot-long causeway where the cargo was loaded on steamboats which carried it and passengers to Clinton in the summer. When the ice was thick enough, rails were laid on the ice in the winter, and cars were only pulled across the river. In addition, there was a 1,375-foot-long piled trestle on the Illinois side.
On December 31, 1863, the Chief Engineer of the Galena & Chicago Union Railroad Company, Willard S. Pope, wrote in his annual report,
“During the last of the year 1863, preparations were commenced for the construction of a bridge across the Mississippi River at Clinton, Iowa. A portion of the river, from the Illinois shore to Little Rock Island, is already spanned by a bridge 1,400 feet long, built before the lines in Iowa passed under the control of this Company.
The proposed bridge will reach from the western bank of Little Rock Island to the Iowa shore and will consist of two spans of 175 feet each, one span of 200 feet, and one span of 300 feet, making a total length of 850 feet.
The span of 300 feet in length will be a drawbridge turning on a pivot in the centre and, when open, leaving a clear passageway for steamboats of 125 feet on each side of the draw pier. The other spans will be fixed bridges.
The draw will be built throughout of wrought iron, after the plan known as Bollman’s Patent Suspension Truss. The other spans will be of timber, of the style known as Howe’s Patent Truss.
The contracts for the superstructure are let, and the work is in progress. Both abutments and one of the smaller piers will be founded.
A second of the smaller piers will rest upon piles. The third small pier and the main draw-pier will rest upon heavy cribwork of timber sunk to the bottom of the river for the purpose of receiving them. These cribs are placed in water about thirty-eight feet deep below low-water line.
The crib for the main draw-pier will be 44 feet wide and upon the rock, 402 feet long, overall, it being designed to place a house thereon for the use of the bridge tender.”
On June 26, 1862 the Albany Railroad Bridge Company switched its bridge and ferry rights, for the term of its charter, to the Chicago, Iowa & Nebraska Railroad Company. On July 3, 1862, it assigned its lease to the Galena & Chicago Union Railroad Company. It wasn’t until April 5, 1864, that Iowa, by Chapter 130, authorized a bridge from the Island to the Iowa shore. On June 2, 1864, the Galena & Chicago Union Railroad Company merged with the Chicago & Northwestern Railroad, which built the main channel bridge.
The 175-foot and 2-200-foot spans were conventional Howe through Trusses with iron verticals. As noted, however, the Detroit Bridge Company designed and built a 300-foot-long swing span consisting of two Bollman Trusses with iron chains dropping down from a cast iron tower on the swing pier to the ends of the top and bottom chords. Bollman had patented his bridge in 1852 (STRUCTURE, February 2015) and had built many of them on the eastern end of the B & O Railroad for Benjamin Latrobe and after for the Galena & Chicago Union Railroad Company, with the Detroit Bridge Company, had used them on a three-span bridge at Elgin, Illinois. The Detroit Bridge & Iron Works, with Charles Kellogg as Engineer, founded in 1863 in Detroit, Michigan, was an early adopter of the Bollman Truss and built many of them in the mid-west. Originally the Bollman trusses had tubular cast iron upper chords and no lower chords. On the Clinton span, since it acted as a cantilever when open and a fixed span when closed, the top chords were built up with two 12-inch channels with 12-inch cover plates top and bottom. The lower chords were built up with two 6-inch channels with 12-inch cover plates. All of the bridge material was wrought iron.
The pivot pier was 400 feet long and 35 feet wide, and the rest piers at the ends of the swing span that supported the fixed Howe Trusses were 140 feet long and 25 feet wide. In the closed position, there was a vertical clear distance of about 25 feet above low water. The Bollman Trusses were erected on the pivot pier in what would be the open position of the span. It was also the first use of a steam engine to open and close a swing bridge.
The bridge was completed on January 10, 1865, followed by a large celebration, and the first freight train crossed on January 19. It was the last bridge built across the Mississippi in which the federal Government did not play a major role in its design. It was also the first bridge to have any span built of wrought iron. The swing span, even though the longest built to that time, made it difficult for steamboats to pass. To prevent the removal of the bridge, as requested by the steamboat operators, Congress in 1867 declared it a Post Road on February 27. The law stated in part, “Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, That the bridge across the Mississippi river erected by the Albany Bridge Company, and the Chicago, Iowa, and Nebraska Railroad Company, under the authority of the States of Iowa and Illinois between the towns of Clinton, Iowa and Albany Illinois, shall be a lawful structure, and shall be recognized and known as a post-route…”
The railroad was pleased with the Bollman spans, writing to the Detroit Bridge & Iron Company on December 21, 1868,
“We have on this division 206 feet double track through bridging, and 425 feet single track deck bridging, of the “Bollman Patent” built by your company. It has all been constructed over six years and maintained without cost, either in adjustment or renewal.
The 300 feet iron draw span over the Mississippi river at Clinton has been in use four years and, like the bridging, has not cost a cent for repairs. I consider it as perfect in construction as any other draw on the river and far more beautiful in design. In a word, your work of all kinds has given universal satisfaction as far as I know.”
The Bollman swing span was replaced in 1887 with an iron Pratt Truss by the Detroit Bridge & Iron Works, and over time, all of the wood spans were replaced with iron. A new steel structure for the Chicago and Northwestern Railroad, on a new alignment with a 400-foot swing span, was opened in 1909. Plans for a new high-level bridge are currently being prepared for the Union Pacific Railroad, which purchased the Chicago and Northwestern Railroad in 1995, with a projected opening in 2025. Information on the Bridge and its successors can be found in Engineering News, January 21, 1909, pages 63-69.