The first bridge was completed on April 21, 1856. (Image courtesy of the Putnam Museum, Davenport, Iowa) On the right are three spans of the bridge over the Slough between the island and the City of Rock Island on the Illinois shore. On the left are the six spans of the bridge across the main channel of the Mississippi River extending from the island to Iowa. This December 1854 view from downstream, drawn some sixteen months before the bridge was completed in April 1856, shows how the bridge utilized Rock Island as a stepping-stone. (Map courtesy of the Rock Island County Historical Society, Moline, Illinois) The First Bridge, 1856-1866 The town of Gilbert, in the upper right, would become Bettendorf in 1903. The Mississippi and Missouri headed northwest out of Davenport. The Rock Island Railroad had come from the east though Moline to the City of Rock Island.
This 1860s map places the first bridge in the context of the Tri Cities. Also shown here is the large tract held by Col.
Trains would head eastward out of the City of Rock Island, then turn north on the island, and then enter the City of Davenport from the southeast. This 1857 map shows the circular path of the new railroad across Rock Island, and the position of the new bridge at Traders Vista. (Map courtesy of the Rock Island District, U. The Mississippi and Missouri Railroad, finally reached Council Bluffs, Iowa on the Missouri River in 1869, by that time having become part of the Chicago, Rock Island, and Pacific Railroad. Then in December 1855 (11:59 p.m., December 31st, to be exact) the first train reached Iowa City, some fifty miles west of Davenport. The first train on the Mississippi and Missouri left this depot in August 1855, destined for Walcott, eight months before the bridge connected Iowa with Illinois. LeClaire's house would become the first railroad depot in Iowa. In the northwest (upper left) corner in Davenport is land and a house occupied by Antoine LeClaire, who donated that land for the beginnings of the first railroad in Iowa, the Mississippi and Missouri, which had corporate links to the Rock Island Railroad and to the Bridge Company. Davenport's land is shown in the center of the image near Trader's Vista. Although it had been deactivated by this time, Fort Armstrong is shown at the western tip of the island. This map of the western part of the island is from a survey of the Rock Island Rapids conducted by Robert E. Trader's Vista would become the location of the first bridge across the main channel of the river. Davenport would look up and down stream for potential customers of his trade. Upstream from Fort Armstrong is a piece of the island that protrudes out into the main channel of the river, labeled "Traders Vista." It is close to the location of a cabin (and later a house that remains today) occupied by George Davenport, who was the Fort's sutler and trader of goods after whom the city was named. The line through the main channel, north of the island, indicates the trace followed by steamboats through the dangerous Rock Island rapids. government established Fort Armstrong at the west end of the island. Soon the Tri Cities (today called the Quad Cities) would surround this island Davenport, Iowa in the upper left, Rock Island, Illinois in the lower left, and Moline, Illinois in the lower right. Here the Mississippi River runs from east to west: Iowa is on the upper part of this map. (Map drawn by the Cartography class at Augustana College, Spring 2003, under the direction of Kathy Dowd) Its narrow channel with a limestone island (Rock Island) could be used as a stepping-stone for the bridge. This reach of the Mississippi River, the location of the Rock Island Rapids, is geologically youthful. One of the reasons this route was chosen was the relative ease with which the Mississippi could be bridged at Rock Island. This map shows the completion dates at various points along the route westward from Chicago. When the Chicago and Rock Island Railroad was completed in 1854 under the direction of Henry Farnam and his partner Joseph Sheffield, it became the first to connect the East with the Mississippi River. Click on this link to see the View from First Bridge - drone footage showing the planned path, and bird's-eye viewĪ pictorial history of the first railroad bridge across the Mississippi River and its three successors by Curtis C.
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