We returned the Arch yesterday to tour the museum and to see the Lewis and Clark movie. Several years ago, we had flown to St. Louis for a conference and had done a quick tour of the Arch going up the tram to the top and seeing the movie on the building of the Arch.
It was a 100 degrees so we looked for shade when walking outside.
The Eads Bridge is a combined road and railway bridge over the Mississippi River at St. Louis, connecting St. Louis and East St. Louis, Illinois. We're staying in East St. Louis right by the Eads Bridge.
The bridge is named for its designer and builder, James Eads. When completed in 1874, it was the first use of true steel in a major bridge project. It was also the first bridge to be built using cantilever support methods exclusively, and one of the first to make use of pneumatic caissons. The Eads Bridge caissons, still among the deepest ever sunk, were responsible for one of the first major outbreaks of "caisson discease" (also known as "the bends" or decompression sickness). Fifteen workers died, two other workers were permanently disabled, and 77 were severely afflicted.
On 14 June 1874, John Robinson led a "test elephant" on a stroll across the new Eads Bridge to prove it was safe. A big crowd cheered as the elephant from a traveling circus lumbered towards Illinois. It was believed that elephants had instincts that would keep them from setting foot on unsafe structures. Two weeks later, Eads sent 14locomotives back and forth across the bridge at one time.
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