Rails across the Mississippi

A History of the St. Louis Bridge

Author: Robert W. Jackson

Paper
978-0-252-07409-7
$19.95

Pub Date:	2007
Pages:	312 pages
Dimensions:	7 x 10 in.
Illustrations:	40 Photographs

The story of the visionary drive that created an engineering marvel.

An absorbing tale of grand dreams, shady politics, daring engineering experiments, greed, ambition, and westward expansion, Rails across the Mississippi is the first book-length history since 1881 to document the planning, financing, and construction of the first bridge across the Mississippi River at St. Louis, a national engineering landmark com-pleted in 1874 that is now known as the Eads Bridge.

James B. Eads--who was not even a trained engineer--proposed a radical arch bridge longer than any in existence using steel, a material thought unsuitable for long-span bridges by virtually every engineer in America and Europe. Robert W. Jackson takes a fresh look at this monumental project, dispelling the myths, filling in the gaps left by earlier scholarship, and detailing how Eads tenaciously overcame the many obstacles he faced to realize his unique vision.

"The bridge completed over the Mississippi River at St. Louis in 1874, designed by James Eads, has long been recognized as one of the outstanding civil engineering accomplishments of 19th-century America. . . . In this volume, Andrew Carnegie, who played a major role in the financial machinations behind the bridge, has a role as central as Eads. . . . Jackson portrays Eads as an egocentric engineer with a dominating personality who was concerned more with building a unique and enduring monument than with keeping costs down and insuring timely completion and profitability. Jackson's work provides a good case study of the lurid financial machinations that were often typical of business dealings in the Gilded Age."--CHOICE