On the south side of Kimmswick is the Windsor Harbor Bridge, which is now completely closed to all traffic, after once being open to pedestrians. Originally placed in Carondelet up in St. Louis from 1874 to 1928, it was moved here in 1930. There is a modern road bridge to the west, made of reinforced…
Tag: Bridges
Yet Another Fire in Chouteau’s Landing
There was another fire in Chouteau’s Landing in the 100 block of Lombard Street. It was a small building, and not nearly as consequential as the fire at Crunden-Martin, but still, it shows the continued threat historic buildings face during cold temperatures. I continued around the area, passing under the MacArthur Bridge. There’s the continued…
Rock Island, Illinois, Part One
The original railroad bridge that first crossed the Mississippi River in 1856 between Rock Island and Davenport is long gone, but there are obviously new spans to replace it. The Government Bridge, which we drove across to Illinois to visit the two cities that make up half of the Quad Cities, is quite the hulking…
Chouteau’s Landing, Early October 2025
We were back down on Chouteau’s Landing much like I was almost a year ago and the the buildings and bridges were looking good in the evening light. The MacArthur Bridge’s road deck is now completely gone, and is only used for trains. I’m always impressed by the massive concrete footings for the other rail…
Avenue G, Part One, Fort Madison, Iowa
As part of our continued series of looking at Iowa river towns north up the Mississippi River from St. Louis at the end of the month this summer, we next head to Fort Madison, crossing over a massive bridge combining both rail and road. Fort Madison’s street grid is laid out with numbered streets starting…
The Viaduct
The viaduct under the old Missouri Pacific train tracks has a date of 1930 imprinted in the concrete over its lintel, but there are huge blocks of granite making up parts of its core, so I suspect it is much older, and was merely repaired in the early Twentieth Century. The road goes down to…
Quinette Road
We’re going to dive into some pretty deep esoterica with our examination of Quinette Road, which was the original name for Big Bend Road between its modern day intersection with Marshall Road and Meramec Station Road. If you look at the old 1862 Hutawa Map, you can see the path of Quinette Road along the…
The Union Electric Hydroelectric Dam, Keokuk, Iowa
We’ll get started with the major landmark in Keokuk. The Cahokia Power Plant was just one cog in a much larger machine that Union Electric didn’t build but purchased shortly after its completion at the beginning of the Twentieth Century. Keokuk and St. Louis have more than one link, and the first we will talk…
McKinley Bridge Sign
I love this sign on North Broadway, pointing the way up to Salisbury Street and the approaches to the McKinley Bridge (whose viaduct you can see in the background. It is very, very old, which is perhaps obvious due to the little circular reflectors on the letters, as well as the letters that have apparently…
West of Downtown Union, Franklin County
Heading west from the square and downtown, we come across St. Paul Lutheran Church, founded in 1921 and originally met in an older building. The current church is from 1952. Houses are relatively simple in town. But I did find this nice Queen Anne Style house back closer to the courthouse. Out southwest of town,…