ACROSS THE WIDE MISSISSIPPI

As westward migration through St. Louis resumed in earnest after the Civil War, the Mississippi River became an increasingly vexatious impediment to the transport of people, wagons, animals and supplies to the expanding settlements beyond. The manpower required to unload a train on the east bank, transfer cargo to a ferryboat for the crossing and then load the cargo onto a westbound train was time consuming and expensive. Furthermore, the river was impassable when the water was low or frozen, sometimes delaying the transport of supplies for weeks.

Since 1839 various entities had floated the idea of spanning the river with a bridge at St. Louis. That discussion intensified when the Ohio & Mississippi Railroad (later absorbed