In June of 1867 Kansas City, Mo., boosters successfully negotiated Congressional approval to build a railroad bridge across the Missouri River, irreverently known as the Big Muddy. At that time, the Missouri had not been bridged at any point along its course. The advantage was especially recognized by the men behind the initiative.

U.S. Congressman, former mayor, and Kansas City Journal editor Robert Van Horn had studied the art of building railroads and applied that knowledge to attract the Hannibal & St. Joseph Railroad to Kansas City.

Milton Payne, another former mayor; Kersey Coates, real estate developer; John Reid, farmer and pro-slavery organizer; and Johnston Lykins, a Baptist missionary turned entrepreneur, made up the core of the Kansas City “power elite” promoting railroad development. All of them, except Van Horn, owned real estate in the area.

They were supported by James Joy, Charles Kearney, and Theodore Case, stockholders in the West Kansas City Land Company, holding land in the mostly wild undeveloped Missouri River bottom known as the West Bottoms. Mr. Oscar L. Whitelaw

Mr. Oscar L. Whitelaw recalled seeing the Bottoms in 1866, “This vast bottom ... was then a primeval forest. A footpath which I have walked or ridden on horseback many a time led through it to the neighboring city, of Wyandotte across the Kaw in Kansas.”

Railroad development and a river bridge was the key to developing the bottoms. A Boston financial

A Boston financial group, controlled by railroad magnate John Forbes, provided funding to the Hannibal and St. Joseph Railroad to build the “Hannibal Bridge.”

The $1 million contract was let to Andrew Carnegie’s Keystone Bridge Company out of Pennsylvania. Octave Chanute, an innovative and self-taught engineer, was selected to design the bridge. Chanute, Kan. is named for him. As chief engineer of the Chicago and Alton Railroad, he designed and supervised construction of Chicago’s Union Stock Yards in 1865.

The Big Muddy was prone to flooding. The devastating flood of 1844 inundated the Kaw’s Mouth, as the bottoms were known in those days.

Eyewitness frontiersmen recalled the great wall of water from the Kansas River that madly rushed against the mighty Missouri causing ... the seething waters to pile up at the mouth …”

By the next day the flood waters had risen eight to 10 feet. Two miles below the Kaw’s mouth, Chouteau’s Landing was washed away and covered with sand up to five feet deep.

Frequent floods caused the river to shift course over a challenging uneven riverbed. Each bridge pier would require its own unique design to fit the location. Over the more shallow rocky riverbed, custom-made concrete footings were built from a base of solid stone. Over the portion of the riverbed with unstable shifting sands oak pilings were sunk deep into the sand to stabilize support for the concrete piers above.

Before construction could begin the river channel had to be cleared of rocks and other debris. In a scene reminiscent of Jules Vern’s Twenty Thousand Leagues Beneath the Sea, divers in bell helmets and suits that looked like submarine space men cleared debris and rocks from the bottom. Divers removed loose sand and silt with “water jets” to prepare a base before sinking each pier. Chanute designed watertight wooden structures, called caissons, to provide a dry space for pouring concrete underwater. Once the caisson was in place a false bottom was removed and concrete was pumped into the caisson, producing a solid foundation for the piers.

A correspondent from the Kansas City Advertiser described interesting problems encountered at Pier No. 3. The “Big Muddy” was testing the limits of the watertight caisson, defying all attempts to keep the caisson dry.

“Finally, the diver going down, succeeded in planting a row of bags filled with concrete, which hardening formed a foundation equal to stone.”

With the caisson stabilized loosened sand was removed by dredging and the “immense cavity was filled with concrete ... (making) a foundation as firm as the everlasting rocks underbedding this almost unmanageable stream.”

The completed bridge, a quarter mile long, rested on seven piers with one span serving as a pivotal draw that could swing open for passing river boats. The draw was successfully tested on June 15, 1869. A fully loaded four-car train passed over the Missouri River for the first time on July 2.

The following day a grand procession of dignitaries, railroad officials, celebratory bands, fraternal orders, bridge mechanics, city employees, and other supporting professions, coursed through Kansas City’s streets to the newly constructed bridge. Thirty to forty thousand people witnessed trains cross the bridge. The pivotal span was drawn to allow passage of a steamboat before the procession proceeded to General Steen’s grove for the “GRAND BARBEQUE.” The completion of the Hannibal Bridge was celebrated across the country. It was indeed a tremendous achievement to tame the erratic Big Muddy on The Way West.

“The Cowboy,” Jim Gray is author of the book Desperate Seed: Ellsworth Kansas on the Violent Frontier, Ellsworth, KS. Contact Kansas Cowboy, 220 21st Road. Geneseo, Kan. Phone: (785) 531-2058 or kansascowboy@kans.com.