The Bridge of Firsts
06/25/2024
They said it couldn’t be done. They said the design of Eads Bridge was preposterous, that it would snarl riverboat traffic, that riverboats wouldn’t fit under it, that its chief engineer had never designed a bridge, that the Mississippi River’s massive currents and 8-foot-thick ice floes would crush it, that its stone piers wouldn’t support its heavy steel spans.
But against all odds, when the Illinois & St. Louis Bridge (later known as Eads Bridge) was completed in 1874, it became the largest bridge built at the time, and the very first steel bridge. And 150 years later, it still stands as the oldest existing bridge on the Mississippi and a testament to one man’s ingenuity.
Juneteenth at our Parks
06/11/2024
Several of our partner parks are planning events to honor Juneteenth, one of the oldest known commemorations related to the abolition of slavery in the United States. The holiday marks the day that enslaved people in Texas learned they had been freed. News of the Emancipation Proclamation had taken two-and-a-half years to reach Texas, arriving June 19, 1865.
JNPA Blog 