Eads Bridge

Eads Bridge is a three-arch steel bridge carrying road and light-rail traffic across the Mississippi between St. Louis and East St. Louis. Its stone approach begins at the north edge of Gateway Arch National Park. The North Gateway paths give you a public place to see the span; plan this as a riverfront and engineering stop rather than assuming you can walk across. Current access to the bridge-side sidewalk is unclear, especially on weekends, so check locally before planning a crossing.

From the North Gateway, look across the river for the three steel arches and their granite-faced piers. Two decks carry the bridge's different kinds of traffic, while the dense ironwork makes the arches easy to read from the riverfront. For a photo, frame all three spans with the Mississippi below; the wide view shows how the bridge crosses the river without requiring a walk onto it.

James Buchanan Eads made his name salvaging steamboat wrecks and building Union ironclad gunboats during the Civil War. The St. Louis Bridge and Iron Company hired him in 1867, even though he had never built a bridge. He paired the arch form with mass-produced Bessemer steel, and the three high arches left room for tall riverboats. Construction used nearly 2,400 tons of steel and more than 3,100 tons of wrought iron.

The piers relied on pneumatic caissons, which let crews work as they sank the foundations deep into the riverbed. The piers reached 123 feet, an unprecedented depth for the project. After years of construction, the bridge opened as the St. Louis Bridge on July 4, 1874; it is still described as the oldest standing bridge on the Mississippi.

The bridge became part of the region's expanding commercial network after the Civil War. It also figures in the 1917 East St. Louis pogrom: thousands of refugees crossed the river on the bridge to reach relative safety in St. Louis.