Although permanent settlement was forced to wait until territories or states formed, the Louisiana Purchase started an ever-increasing number of people crossing the Missouri River headed west.
With the concept of the transcontinental railroad, the river furnished a challenge. The Union Pacific Railroad’s chief engineer Grenville Dodge pointed out that the “Missouri River is the most formidable obstacle to travel between the Atlantic and the Pacific,” while an observer at Nebraska City added, a bridge “could never be done in God’s world.”
Bridges did, of course, come, particularly those built by the railroad, but before, and virtually concurrent with, their permanent crossings, came several ingenious, albeit sometimes brief, methods of getting across the Missouri while “leaving the United States.”
Even without a way to directly cross the river, some railroad activity began on the west side of the Missouri with locomotives brought upriver and cars, both with cargo and empty, arriving via barges or boats while others were ferried across from Iowa.
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A direct crossing was obviously favored, allowing a stream of traffic instead of one or two cars at a time. One intriguing concept was an ice bridge during winter months. On Jan. 17, 1867, a “train of cars” crossed the river at Omaha “on an ice bridge,” in 1869 there was a supposed railroad crossing at Blair by ice and an 1870 dated photograph shows a string of railroad cars on an Omaha ice bridge.
Another ingenious bridge concept was a floating or pontoon bridge. A bridge of 200 pontoons was built at Sioux City in 1889, which ran seasonally until 1896 when a permanent bridge was completed. An 1890 pontoon bridge once connected South Dakota with Nebraska and a $10,000 floating bridge opened on Labor Day of 1902 at Plattsmouth but broke apart the following year. The best recorded and photographed such bridge however was the one at Nebraska City.
The idea for a pontoon bridge or a bridge built on floating “boats” instead of pilings, at Nebraska City, was introduced by Col. S. N. Stewart of Philadelphia in March or April of 1888. He proposed personally to put up half of the estimated $20,000 cost if the community would pledge the balance. The businessmen quickly raised almost $13,000, resulting in immediate construction. The bridge consisted of 100, double-bottomed, oak “boats” connected by steel wire cables, floating in a V shape, south of the Burlington & Missouri River Railroad’s bridge, which was completed a week later.
Opened on Aug. 23, 1888, the final cost of the pontoon bridge was $18,000 and was described as being 24 feet wide with a “main span of 894 feet, east approach of 1,100 feet,” with the floating section open and closed by a one-man, hand-operated winch. The boats and floating deck were removed in winter months to avoid ice floes. Pedestrian, mounted, wagon and stock tolls were set from five to 50 cents and averaged about half of what ferries charged. The bridge was hailed as “the largest (pontoon) bridge in the world.”
The bridge received ice and high water damage in 1889 and 1890 while, in 1891, the railroad planked between the steel rails of its bridge allowing wagon, stock and walkers, resulting in the pontoon bridge not being repaired or replaced. The railroad bridge reverted to primarily rail traffic when the “municipally owned” and partially Woods Brothers Co. of Lincoln-financed Waubonsie Bridge for vehicles opened in October of 1930.
In February of 1882 five Omaha and five Council Bluffs, Iowa, businessmen proposed a wagon bridge connecting the two cities. In November of 1890, the idea resulted in the $2.5 million Interstate Bridge & Street Railway’s incorporation. The name was changed to the Omaha Bridge & Terminal Railway in 1892 and the following year the ingenious 1,620-foot cast iron, double swinging bridge opened. The street railway tracks, which also had flat lanes for wagons and pedestrians, was called “the largest and, with one exception, the heaviest swing span in the world.”
In 1903-04 most of the bridge was rebuilt in steel at a cost of over $1 million and still stands today with the Iowa rotating side fixed in the open position. Because the Missouri River changed course, creating Carter Lake, Iowa, the bridge itself ended up connecting Iowa with Iowa. The bridge, now owned by the Canadian National Railway, officially closed to traffic in 1980 but was saved as a possible emergency crossing should the primary Union Pacific bridge be damaged or closed.
Historic landmarks across Nebraska
Slab of Sandstone
Salt Basin Monument
Fort McPherson
Weber Mill
Fort Kearny
Willa Cather's Childhood Home
Fort Atkinson
Woodcliff Burial Site
Fort Robinson
Cattle Trail
Jalapa, Nebraska
Massacre Canyon
Arbor Lodge State Park
Ashfall Fossil Beds
Scotts Bluff
Chimney Rock
Pony Express
Historian Jim McKee, who still writes with a fountain pen, invites comments or questions. Write to him in care of the Journal Star or at jim@leebooksellers.com.