Mile 180.0 - Eads Bridge

John Ruskey

20 Apr 2026 � 1 min read

180 Eads Bridge

The Eads bridge is a standing testament to its maker and strength of beautiful architecture. For all travelers it is a monument of the journey, and paddlers are no exception. You will get the best views of anyone from your canoe or the cockpit of your kayak. In between dodging workboats and staying in the flow below the Martin Luther King Bridge, watch for the best angle and make your shot.

The Eads Bridge was a structure of numerous firsts - it was the longest arched bridge in the world,the first river bridge at St. Louis, and the southern-most Mississippi River bridge when it opened - a title it would hold until Memphis's Frisco bridge opened in 1892. The bridge made pioneering use of steel as a structural component. For the construction of its massive piers, it made the first use of pressurized construction chambers (and construction crews paid a heavy price due to the then-unknown effects of "the bends".)

The Eads was the brainchild of its namesake, engineer and shipbuilder James B. Eads, who designed it in 1867. Fierce opposition from steamboat interests had thus far prevented a river bridge at St. Louis after the Civil War. No bridge meant no railroads, and St. Louis began to lose ground to Chicago. Only after some dogged legal and business battles was Eads able to get his bridge underway, and even then he faced restrictions imposed by the steamboat industry regarding free passage of river traffic.

The bridge opened in 1874, but in some ways it was too little, too late. Chicago was already on its way to eclipsing St. Louis. The bridge company would go bankrupt within a year - but the railroads did come, and St. Louis's transformation into an industrial powerhouse began. Streetcars and carriages crossed the upper deck, eventually joined by automobiles. (Built St. Louis)

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