More about...Spans in Time: A History of Nebraska Bridges

Nebraska City's Pontoon Bridge

Spans in Time: A History of Nebraska Bridges, published
by the Society and the Nebraska Department of Roads, reviews
the history of Nebraska bridges from the earliest temporary spans
built by overland emigrants to the modern steel and concrete
bridges of the twentieth century. Among the featured bridges
is the unique pontoon bridge that crossed the Missouri River
at Nebraska City.

The unique pontoon bridge across the Missouri
River at Nebraska City, 1888 (Nebraska
State Historical Society, N361-24)

Constructing permanent bridges over major rivers required
engineering skills and financial resources that small communities
could rarely muster. Although railroads had both the resources
and the incentive to build substantial bridges when their tracks
reached the riverbank, railroad spans did not always provide
passage for horse-drawn and pedestrian traffic. Ferries, either
small steamboats or flatboats propelled by ropes or cables from
the shore, offered limited capacity and sometimes inconvenient
schedules. In the winter, rivers could often be crossed on the
ice, a risky business indeed when the temperature or water level
fluctuated.

Although Congress had chartered the Nebraska City Bridge Company
in the early 1870s, by summer 1888 only the new Burlington railroad
bridge spanned the Missouri River there. City leaders were receptive,
then, when Col. S. N. Stewart of Philadelphia proposed to build
a pontoon toll bridge if the community would subsidize its construction.
The pontoon bridge, estimated to have cost about $18,000, opened
to much fanfare on August 23, 1888. Not only was it claimed to
be the first such bridge across the Missouri River, but also
the largest draw bridge of its kind in the world. The pontoon
section crossing the main channel was 1,074 feet long, with a
1,050-foot cribwork approach spanning a secondary channel between
an island and the Iowa shore. The roadway, including two pedestrian
footways, was twenty-four-and-one-half-feet wide. Opening the
"draw" (the V-shaped portion that could swing open
for boats or flowing ice) provided a 528-foot-wide passage. Tolls
for round trip crossings were set at fifty cents for double teams,
forty cents for single teams, a quarter for a horse and rider,
a nickel for pedestrians, and from ten to two cents each for
horses, cattle, sheep, and hogs. The bridge was considered a
significant engineering feat and was featured in articles published
in the Scientific American and Harper's Weekly.

While the bridge operated successfully during ice-free months
or when the river was not unusually high or low, the capricious
Missouri soon created problems. Ice tore loose some of the pontoons
in February 1889, although they were captured and replaced. In
July heavy rains raised the river and forced the bridge to close
temporarily. In January 1890 several pontoons sank, and a month
later ice again carried away part of the structure. High water
in the summer of 1890 closed the bridge for thirty-five days.
It became increasingly clear that a permanent wagon bridge was
still needed, and in the spring of 1890 the city fathers began
planning an election to vote bonds to build one. Stewart responded
by threatening to remove the pontoon bridge.

Voters approved the bridge bonds in July; the courts initially
upheld them against a series of legal challenges mounted by the
Burlington Railroad. The Burlington claimed it had acquired the
Nebraska City Bridge Company's original charter to build the
railroad bridge and therefore, the railroad was entitled to the
bonds. In the face of these developments, Stewart may have concluded
that the pontoon bridge's days were numbered. He must have grown
tired, too, of the constant labor and expense required to keep
it open. In early November 1890 he announced that the bridge
had been sold to parties in Atchison, Kansas. On November 13
the pontoons were sent down the river toward the bridge's new
home. A month later, the U.S. District Court ruled the bridge
bonds were invalid. Nebraska City was back where it had started.

In 1891 the Burlington laid planks beside the tracks across
its railroad span so it could be used as a toll bridge for non-railroad
traffic. For nearly forty years, wagons, horsemen, pedestrians,
and motor vehicles shared the bridge with the trains of the C.
B. & Q. Nebraska City's dream of a permanent vehicular bridge
was finally realized on October 14, 1930, with the opening of
the Waubonsie Bridge, constructed by the Kansas City Bridge Company.
Long gone, but not entirely forgotten, was the innovative pontoon
bridge that had briefly seemed the answer to the Missouri River
problem.