The Bellefontaine Bridge is a four-span truss railroad bridge over the Missouri River between

St. Charles County, Missouri St. Charles County is in the central eastern part of the U.S. state of Missouri. As of the 2020 census, the population was 405,262, making it Missouri's third-most populous county. Its county seat is St. Charles. The county was organized Octo ...

, and

St. Louis County, Missouri St. Louis County is located in the eastern-central portion of Missouri. It is bounded by the City of St. Louis and the Mississippi River to the east, the Missouri River to the north, and the Meramec River to the south. At the 2020 census, th ...

. It has four spans. Construction started on July 4, 1892, and the bridge opened on December 27, 1893. The bridge was built by the

Chicago, Burlington and Quincy Railroad The Chicago, Burlington and Quincy Railroad was a railroad that operated in the Midwestern United States. Commonly referred to as the Burlington Route, the Burlington, or as the Q, it operated extensive trackage in the states of Colorado, Illin ...

and is now owned and operated by

BNSF Railway BNSF Railway is one of the largest freight railroads in North America. One of seven North American Class I railroads, BNSF has 35,000 employees, of track in 28 states, and nearly 8,000 locomotives. It has three transcontinental routes that ...

. New Jersey Steel and Iron Company of Trenton, New Jersey, served as the contractor for the original construction, and

George S. Morison George Shattuck Morison (December 19, 1842 – July 1, 1903) was an American attorney best known as a designer of bridges. He was trained to be a lawyer but instead became a civil engineer and leading bridge designer in North America in the late 1 ...

designed the structure. Notably, the bridge was one of the first to use a

Baltimore truss A truss bridge is a bridge whose load-bearing superstructure is composed of a truss, a structure of connected elements, usually forming triangular units. The connected elements (typically straight) may be stressed from tension, compression, or s ...

design; the nearby

Merchants Bridge The Merchants Bridge, officially the Merchants Memorial Mississippi Rail Bridge, is a rail bridge crossing the Mississippi River between St. Louis, Missouri, and Venice, Illinois. The bridge is owned by the Terminal Railroad Association of St. L ...

(also designed by Morison) used a Pennsylvania through truss design and had opened just a few years prior. The truss spans are found on masonry piers, which were constructed atop

caissons Caisson (French for "box") may refer to: * Caisson (Asian architecture), a spider web ceiling * Caisson (engineering), a sealed underwater structure * Caisson (lock gate), a gate for a dock or lock, constructed as a floating caisson * Caisson (pe ...

founded into bedrock below the river. The structure is the last railroad structure over the Missouri River before its confluence with the Mississippi River.

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External links

*
Bridgehunter.com profile
Railroad bridges in Missouri Bridges in St. Louis County, Missouri Bridges in St. Charles County, Missouri Bridges completed in 1893 Historic American Engineering Record in Missouri Truss bridges in the United States BNSF Railway bridges Chicago, Burlington and Quincy Railroad Bridges over the Missouri River Baltimore truss bridges 1893 establishments in Missouri {{Missouri-bridge-struct-stub

See also

References

External links