Eastbridge was a railroad station on the east bank of the

Colorado River The Colorado River () is one of the principal rivers (along with the Rio Grande) in the Southwestern United States and in northern Mexico. The river, the List of longest rivers of the United States (by main stem), 5th longest in the United St ...

Mohave County Mohave County occupies the northwestern corner of the U.S. state of Arizona, one of 15 counties in the state. As of the 2020 census, its population was 213,267. The county seat is Kingman, and the largest city is Lake Havasu City. It is th ...

Arizona Arizona is a U.S. state, state in the Southwestern United States, Southwestern region of the United States, sharing the Four Corners region of the western United States with Colorado, New Mexico, and Utah. It also borders Nevada to the nort ...

, United States. It was located at the site of the first bridge the

Atlantic and Pacific Railroad The Atlantic and Pacific Railroad was an American railroad that owned or operated two individual segments of track. One connected St. Louis, Missouri, with Tulsa, Oklahoma, and the other connected Albuquerque, New Mexico, with Needles in Southe ...

built across that river, three miles southeast of Needles, in

San Bernardino County, California San Bernardino County ( ), officially the County of San Bernardino and sometimes abbreviated as S.B. County, is a County (United States), county located in the Southern California, southern portion of the U.S. state of California, and is locat ...

History

The wooden bridge across the Colorado River constructed between Eastbridge station and the California bank in 1883 was built across the wet alluvial soils of the

flood plain A floodplain or flood plain or bottomlands is an area of land adjacent to a river. Floodplains stretch from the banks of a river channel to the base of the enclosing valley, and experience flooding during periods of high Discharge (hydrolog ...

of the

Mohave Valley The Mohave Valley is a valley located mostly on the east shore of the south-flowing Colorado River in northwest Arizona. The valley extends into California's San Bernardino County; the northern side of the valley extends into extreme southeast ...

. The site had no solid base on either bank and was over 1600 feet wide. The construction was conducted during the flood season of the Colorado that began in May. For three months, the building crews struggled to drive wooden pilings into the river bed only to see them washed out by the river. Pilings were only driven into the mid river section with the help of a pile driver mounted on Barge No. 3, towed and held in position by the ''Mohave II''. This first bridge, when completed in August was still vulnerable to flooding and was washed out or undermined by the spring flooding of the river and had to be replaced in 1884, 1886 and 1888. Finally the railroad changed its route southward along the California bank, to Beal, then to a place opposite Mellen, where from 1889 to May 1890 they built the Red Rock Bridge, a

cantilever bridge A cantilever bridge is a bridge built using structures that project horizontally into space, supported on only one end (called cantilevers). For small footbridges, the cantilevers may be simple beam (structure), beams; however, large cantilever ...

, on rock foundations, unlike the previous site. After completion of the bridge, the section of track between the point where the line changed direction to the new bridge, to the station of Powell and to the bridge and station at Eastbridge, was abandoned in 1890.Richard E. Lingenfelter, Steamboats on the Colorado River, 1852-1916, University of Arizona Press, Tucson, 1978

References

External links

Map of the 5th Operating Division of the Western Division, Atlantic & Pacific R.R., From Peach Springs to Needles. W.A. Drake, Acting Chief Engineer. Drawing No. J-2-902.
from davidrumsey.com accessed July 20, 2015. This map was one of a set of six hand-drawn maps made in 1882 on semi-transparent waxed linen with some color, illustrating the route Lewis Kingman surveyed from Albuquerque to Needles. It was intended to be printed but never was, due possibly to the problems at the bridge at Eastbridge, shown on this map, from 1884 to 1890.
Old A & P pile bridge built just east of Needles by Atlantic and Pacific Railroad in 1883. Looking west from Arizona side. The drawbridge on California side does not show. The steel bridge at Topock was built in 1889 and this wooden bridge torn down in 1890.
from hdl.huntington.org accessed July 25, 2015. Photo taken in 1883. {{coord, 34.8176, -114.5758, display=t Ghost towns in Arizona Former populated places in Mohave County, Arizona 1883 establishments in Arizona Territory Populated places established in 1883