W9RI Special Event
April 22 and 23, 2006

The 150th Anniversary of the First Railroad Bridge
Across the Mississippi River

Sponsors: Green River Valley Amateur Radio Society, K9WM, and the Quad City Historical Radio Society, W9RI.

Times: 1400-2400 Z, April 22 and 23, 2006

Frequencies: 146.460, 28.450, 21.350, 14.250, 7.250, and 7.050.

Please send QSL confirming the QSO to:
W9RI
2519 29th Avenue
Rock Island, IL 61201

For a special event QSL, include a self-addressed, stamped business envelope.
For a special event Certificate, include a 9X12 inch self-addressed, stamped envelope.

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The First Railroad Bridge Across the Mississippi

The arrival of the Chicago and Rock Island Railroad, the first to reach the Mississippi River from the East, was accompanied by a big celebration in Rock Island (Illinois) on February 22, 1854. In June of that year, a larger celebration, the Grand Excursion, brought hundreds of prominent Easterners by rail to Rock Island and Davenport (Iowa), then up the Mississippi on five steamboats to St. Paul in Minnesota Territory.

Even as these celebrations were being held, construction was progressing on the first railroad bridge to span the Mississippi, connecting Rock Island with Davenport, which would allow a seamless rail ride into Iowa and eventually across the continent. An easterner, Henry Farnam, was the contractor for the railroad and for the bridge. Work had started on the bridge in July 1853 and was completed in April 1856. The first train crossed the bridge on April 21, 1856, pulled by the locomotive Fort Des Moines.

The piers for the bridge were built by John Warner, a local contractor. The bridge superstructure was constructed by Stone and Boomer, a Chicago company that held the patent for the Howe Truss bridge design. The Howe Truss was developed in the 1840s by William Howe of Massachusetts. Howe's design was distinguished from other truss bridges by long arches that were supported by the piers at the ends of each fixed span, providing additional support to the bridge trusses. The Rock Island Bridge had five fixed spans, each 250 feet in length, and one draw (swing) span, located near the middle of the river. At 296 feet in length, this draw span was the longest ever constructed up to that time.

Just two weeks after the bridge was opened, the steamboat Effie Afton collided with the bridge causing both to burn. Although the bridge was rebuilt and reopened in September 1856, court cases involving the railroad's right to span the river followed for several years thereafter. In the first court case, Abraham Lincoln defended the railroad against steamboat interests in September 1857 at the U. S. Circuit Court in Chicago. Because the jury failed to reach a verdict and was discharged, the bridge remained. Another case was taken up in an Iowa U. S. District Court, which ruled in November 1959 that the three spans on the Iowa side of the river be removed. They were not. That case was taken to the U. S. Supreme Court, which ruled in January 1863 that the bridge could remain.

The 1856 bridge was the first of four bridges to connect (the Island of) Rock Island to Davenport. A second, stronger bridge was built in 1866 on the same piers as the first. Then in 1872, a third bridge was constructed some 500 yards downstream from the first two, near the west end of the island where the current Government Bridge stands today. Like today's, it was a double-decker with railroad tracks on the top level. Finally, the fourth and current bridge was completed in 1896 on the same piers used for its predecessor. Today's Government Bridge was the first of the four to have double railroad tracks, and from 1888 until 1940, it accommodated trolleys on its lower deck in addition to other vehicles and pedestrians.