THE RULO BRIDGE.

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THE RULO BRIDGE.

I.

PRELIMINARY NARRATIVE

Before the completion of the Plattsmouth Bridge in 1880, the importanceof a lower crossing of the Missouri to accommodate the Southern lines of yourNebraska system of railroad, became apparent, and I was instructed by you tomake an examination with a view to locating such a bridge near the mouth ofthe Little Nemaha. This examination was made in the season of i88o-’8t andresulted in the selection of a location near the little village of Aspinwall abouttwo miles below the mouth of the Little Nemaha. A bridge built here wouldhave made a direct connection between the railroad leading westerly fromNemaha City to Beatrice and the branch on the east side of the river fromCorning to Villisca.

Subsequently the acquisition of the Hannibal & St. Joseph R. R. by yourcompany made a more southerly crossing desirable and the fact that theAtchison & Nebraska R. R. (a portion of your Nebraska System) followeddown the valley of the Great Nemaha indicated that a location at Rulo nearthe mouth of the Great Nemaha would have decided commercial advantagesover the Aspinwall location.

The season of i 883-’84 was therefore devoted to examinations and sur-veys in the neighborhood of the mouth of the Great Nemaha.

The beginning of the work may be fixed as September 13th, 1883, whenMr. B. L. Crosby the Resident Engineer arrived at Rulo. The location atRulo was fixed by me and borings were actually begun one week after Mr.Crosby’s arrival.

These borings showed a state of affairs quite unlike that usually found in

the Missouri River , there being no rock within any reasonable depth, but astiff bed of blue clay, of an average thickness of about 15 feet was found underthe alluvial sand, this clay resting on a bed of coarse sand and gravel of vary-ing thickness, which itself rested on a bed of clay, the surface of which wasnearly level and which from its stratified character was found to be more trulya shale than a clay. These borings showed that though the bridge when builtwould be of a satisfactory character, the cost of the foundations would beexceptionally large. It was evidently expedient to examine other points in thesame neighborhood.

Borings were accordingly made in the spring and summer of 1884 atWhite Cloud 10 miles below Rulo and at Arago 10 miles above Rulo, thesebeing the nearest points at which the general topography of the country indi-cated that the construction of a bridge would be feasible. The borings atWhite Cloud gave better results than at Rulo, as rock bottom was reached,but at Arago, on the east side of the river, hard material was found only at adepth of 123 feet from top of sand bar, this material being a very soft sandstone. The difficulties in approaching a bridge at either of these points wereso great that Rulo was selected as decidedly the best location.

The width of the river at ordinary high water stage at Rulo was about1600 feet, the channel being next to the west shore. This width being greaterthan the width required to pass the river, it was determined to reduce thiswidth to about 1 too feet by the construction of a dike above the bridge.Construction of this dike was authorized in October 1884, work was begun onthe track leading to this dike October 22d; the dike itself was begun on the4th of December and completed May 7th, 1885, and an extension in the formof a permeable screen made in the following May and June.

Authority for the construction of the bridge was obtained from the generalgovernment in 1884 by an Act which became a law June 18th, 1884. ThisAct is printed in full in Appendix Ik

The location of the bridge had been definitely fixed at the time that Rulowas selected in preference to any other place. The character of the bridgewas, however, not fixed at this time. It was evident to me from the beginningthat the only proper structure was a high bridge without a draw, the westernapproach to which would run nearly due west connecting with the Atchison &Nebraska Railroad in the Nemaha valley. In this opinion I had the heartysupport of Mr. R. J. McClure, Chief Engineer of the Chicago, Burlington &Quincy R. R. and Mr. J. F. Barnard, then General Manager of the Hannibal &St. Joseph R. R. who really had been the first to call attention to the merits ofRulo as a place for crossing the Missouri River .

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There was, on the other hand, a decided demand by some of the operatingofficials of the company for a low bridge, the west approach to connect withthe old track of the Atchison & Nebraska R. R. in front of the town of Rulo,which ran south along the Missouri bottom till it reached the Nemaha valley.The merits of a high bridge scheme was its simplicity, a less cost of mainten-ance of the bridge and the fact that it shortened the through distance two miles.The only advantage of the low bridge scheme was that it avoided the deep cutwest of Rulo, and a careful estimate showed that a low bridge would be themore expensive of the two. The difference in opinion prevented an earlydetermination of the plan of bridge and did much to render the cost of realestate on the west side of the river unreasonably large.

In 1885 and before the character of bridge had been determined, I askedfor authority to put in the foundation of Pier I (the eastern pier) with a viewof determining more fully the character of the material on which the pierswould rest. This authority was granted and work was actually begun Decem-ber 3, 1885, this foundation being finished in the following April.

The character of the bridge was finally determined and the plans weresubmitted to the Secretary of War for approval July 19, 1886. No effort wasmade to get this approval quickly, and it was not finally received until Feb-ruary^, 1887, work, however, had meanwhile been in progress.

In May 1886 authority was given to continue the construction ofthe bridge in earnest and the work was prosecuted from this time forwardwithout delay under the direct charge of Mr. B. L. Crosby as ResidentEngineer.

The winter of 1886-87 was unfavorable for work, it being one in which theice formed and broke up several times, this causing some delay and increasingthe cost of the work.

The last span of the bridge was swung September 24, 1887, and on theafternoon of October 2d the first locomotive crossed the bridge, and it wasopened to traffic immediately thereafter.

The great cut on the west approach to the bridge was, however, not yetcompleted, and for nearly two years the traffic crossing the bridge was takenover the old line between Rulo and Rulo Y.

On June 3, 1889 the excavation for the great cut was completed, thoughthe track remained to be laid and much ditching to be done; on July 14th thefirst train passed through the great cut. The ballasting of the track throughthe great cyt was completed September 8th.

On November 1, 1889, the bridge with its approaches was turned over tothe operating department as a completed structure.