Lemont Stephen Street Bridge over I&M Canal

(3D Satellite)

The bridges for Stephen Street over the Des Plaines River and the CS&SC are documented here.

When I first visited this bridge, I noticed it was a modern concrete bridge and did not pay attention to the bridge, I was focused on the I&M Canal. When I was there a second time, my wife was with me and she pointed out the tile art on the rail pillars. But I did not have my camera with me. So when I went back a third time for some pictures of the canal walls, I made sure to bring my camera.

I took pictures of just the east side because the sun was low and the west side is very similar.

I think I had all 9 pillars in the viewfinder's image. So the new camera does not record all of what I see. Even without the tiled pillars, this railing would be significant because of the pattern in the rail wall. Normally, only historic bridges attempt to incorporate some decoration. This is one of the most attractive patterns that I have seen.

In the following closeups of each pillar, notice that there is sometimes a word at the bottom. (I tried putting multiple images across using GIMP, but I could not figure out how to do it.)

The words read "Our hopes for our memories of." The side pillars did not have any words:

So the words on the other side, "water under the bridge," must be intended.