The Waxahachie daily light. [volume] (Waxahachie, Tex.) 1894-current, 1912-06-29

cldfeu nav gable 1t is for Skiffs
and launches with flat bottoms
but the clause relating TO naviga-
ton helps wonderfully in getting
the railroads to lift their bridges
upward.
Millions of dollars will have to
be spent to widen and improve the
river. The work done by the Mis-
souri, Pacific on its bridge No. ~
cost about 100000. Half a score
of other structures will run the
total into millions The drainage
board hopes that the widened riv-
er will allow the water to escape
from Kaw into the Missouri rap
idly enough that the water will
never reach the mark it touched
in the o-be-forgotten year
of 1908.
The piers of the remodeled
bridge are 1o5 feet in height. They
go down through the mud and
earth and bury themselves in the
solid rock. The old piers are now
being taken out and every stone
ami piece of mortar has to be re-
moved from the river bed The
drainage board intends to have no
obstruction left in the river that
viii in any way hinder dredging
in the future.
Ten hours after the last train
went over the bridge on the morn
ing of April 10, wheels we're click
ing across the points of the new
structure. At 8:15 o'clock that
night traffic was resumed across
the same span that had been in
continual service since the bridge
was finished in 1901.
The bridge as it now stands is
exactly 736 feet in length, from
its west to its east piers. 1t stands
about forty feet above low-water
mark and flood like that in 1903
would just lick the lower steel
work in the two bridge tracks. 1t
is a few yards inside the Kansas
state boundary.
iSN " 40 WIN tJ ihlSS iu}l llC ildltN
from side to side, but this is the
first instance in railroad engineer
ing where whole structure coup
led together has been picked up
and bodily moved d distance of
1875 feet. The engineers of the
bridge department have right to
feel somewhat proud of themselves.
Kansas will sleep better in flood
time because of the lifting of the
bridges and the widening of the
river channel, The Union Pacific
and the Rock Island are already
at work on their bridges.
Other roads will attend to their
structures during the present year.
When all the bridges have been
channeled to greater depth and
width. Kansas City will be able to
go through another record flood
without the water wetting the tops
of her new levees
Just above it stood the Union
Pacific bridge. Against this the
floating tank cars. twenty feet in
diameter, came pounding and ham-
aowm ana Bumped It jarringiiy. But
steel car bodies swan down and
struck it like hydraulic rams. There
was a drift of steel and wood on
it's upper side that finally sent
the whole structure over with a
crash. A new 100000 tons of steel
Topped over and fell under and
just above the Missouri Pacific
bridge.
Eight heavy road engines kept
the latter bridge from literally
lifting from its masonry piers. But
it stood and it is in service, but the
hardly know it in its
new shape.
Kansas City, not caring to have
a repetition of the flood horrors
of 1908, decided to widen the Kaw
river so that the flood waters from
upstate could hasten into the Mis-
souri,. To this end the Kaw val
ley drainage board was brought
into being. 1t ordered every bridge
within its jurisdiction raised and
In Kansas City, along Union ave-
nue. and Hickory street, they will
lead you into barrooms and show
you on the bar mirrors the high
water mark of 1908. Every time
a Kansas Cityan looks at this
mark he shudders. When the
drainage board set about straight
ening and deepening the river, one
of the first requirements they made
was that all bridges should be
lifted above the mark made by the
great flood of 1908. In Kansas
City they date all local affairs
as being either before or after the
big flood"
So far the Missouri Pacific
bridge is the only one that has
met this and other requirements.