Rails across the Mississippi
Subtitle: A HISTORY OF THE ST. LOUIS BRIDGE
Publisher: University of Illinois Press
Published: October 29, 2001
Language: eng
Format: Hardcover
Number of pages: 312
ISBN-13: 9780252026805
Subjects: American history; Civil Engineering, Surveying & Building; History of engineering & technology; Bridge Engineering; History - U.S.; Transportation; Mississippi; Engineering - Civil; United States - State & Local - General; Transportation / Railroads / History; General; Railroads - History; Bridges; Eads Bridge (Saint Louis, Mo.); Mississippi River
First sentence: Nearly fifty years before a bridge at St. Louis became a reality, a schoolmaster named Russell from Bluffdale, Illinois, wrote an account of a remarkable "vision of the night" that had come to him "when deep sleep falleth on man."
Description: "A tale of grand dreams, shady politics, daring engineering experiments, greed, ambition, and westward expansion, Rails across the Mississippi is the first book-length history since 1881 to document the planning, financing, and construction of the first bridge across the Mississippi River at St. Louis, a national engineering landmark completed in 1874 that is now known as the Eads Bridge. Robert W.

Jackson takes a fresh look at this monumental project, dispersing the myths and filling in the gaps left by earlier scholarship."--BOOK JACKET.