December 8, 1881… St. Charles Bridge Disaster of 1881
One man was killed and two injured, December 8, 1881 in the third great St. Charles, Missouri River bridge disaster when a span on the east side of the huge structure collapsed, hurling a train of 31 freight cars into the sand and water below. A similar accident, two years earlier, November 8, 1879, had killed 5 men when the span gave way while a trainload of grain and stock was making the crossing. Just why either span should collapse could not be explained, but the wrought iron in the structure was afterward replaced with steel.
The first disaster to the bridge, at that time the longest of its pattern in the United States, occurred November 11, 1870, while it was under construction. As workmen were lifting iron girders weighing more then 4 tons into place, the hoisting machinery broke, dropping the metal 42 feet into the river. Nineteen men were killed and a number injured.
Of the third disaster the St. Louis Republican said: “The noise of the immense structure falling was distinctly heard across the river in St. Charles, and many of its inhabitants,… hastened to reach the scene. It was a terrible one. The broken timbers of the bridge and the broken freight cars and wrecked locomotive were piled in a heap, partly in and partly out of the river, mixed with the mangled carcasses of the cattle, with which the train was partially loaded. Work was commenced at once to remove from the debris and the bodies of the unfortunate train men, who had been killed, for it seemed impossible that any should escape alive. Strange as it may seem, all who were known to have been on the train escaped alive except Engineer Jack Kirksby, who went down with his engine and was killed.”
The bridge had been constructed by the St. Charles Bridge Company at a cost of nearly $2,000,000 and was opened for traffic May 29, 1871. The Structure was leashed to the Wabash Railroad Company under a perpetual lease, at an annual rental of from $130,000 to $200,000. Later the railroad company purchased the bridge. The old Wabash railroad bridge was replaced by a new structure, opened for traffic, October 13, 1936 and was located “approximately one-half mile downstream, or north of the old bridge . . .”
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