St. Joseph Swing Bridge

The St. Joseph Swing Bridge is a Union Pacific Railroad truss Swing bridge connecting St. Joseph, Missouri, and Elwood, Kansas.

History

Original bridge

The first bridge on the location was built by the St. Joseph Bridge Building Company and cost $716,000 and opened on May 20, 1873, with a crossing by the St. Joseph & Denver City Railroad. The original bridge had six piers with three spans of 300 feet, one fixed span of 80 feet on the east end and a draw span of 3,654 feet makin the total span of 1,345 feet.
The opening of the bridge was reported:
On June 16, 1879, the bridge was transferred to Jay Gould and operated under the name of the St. Joseph and [Grand Island Railway|St. Joseph & Grand Island Railroad Company]. The Atchison, Topeka and [Santa Fe Railway] and Chicago, Rock Island and Pacific Railroad also had trackage rights to the bridge.
The bridge still fell into disrepair and the city bonds were never paid off and it was sold to the bond holders for $5,000 in a foreclosure sale in 1901.

Current bridge

The bridge was replaced with the current swing bridge in 1906.
Union Pacific sold the bridge and its 108-mile line to Upland, Marshall County, Kansas, to Railtex in 1990 operating it as the Northeast [Kansas and Missouri Railroad]. Union Pacific bought it back in 1998 to use for returning empty coal trains going from Missouri back to Wyoming. However, Union Pacific was interested primarily in the tracks from Hiawatha, Kansas, to Upland. It subsequently abandoned the tracks between Elwood and Hiawatha although it still keeps ownership of the bridge and small rail spur to the west side of Elwood. The swing bridge is usually left in the open position.