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| Richard Pitchford posted
Busy morning on the Rush St. Bridge, 1910, Chicago.
The Rush St. Bridge was dismantled shortly after completion of the Michigan Ave Bridge in the 1920s. Ryerson and Burnham Archives, Art Institute of Chicago. |
I repeat the image because this one has better resolution.
An even earlier swing bridge.
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| Historic Chicago posted Chicago - Busy morning on the Rush Street Bridge (1910) Laurie Reyna Looks like the horses have to keep to the right and leave the left lane for the horseless carriages... |
An even earlier swing bridge.
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| Noach Hoffman posted An exquisite 1861 aquatint by Raoul Varin: Rush Street Bridge. Collection of the Smithsonian American Art Museum. Not currently on display. A beautiful work of art which provides an invaluable visual image of pre-Fire Chicago. Terry Gregory: The story of Varin’s 1926 aquatints can be found on the bottom of this link. Varin made aquatint copies of prints produced in 1866 for Chicago Illustrated among other prints. https://chicagology.com/prefire/chicagoillustrated/ |
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| Bridges Now and Then posted Chicago's Rush Street Bridge #1, c. 1860. (Chicagology) |
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| BDBRCPC posted Construction of the Wrigley building on the Chicago River (1920-1924). The old Rush street bridge in the foreground. |
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| Peter Bex commented Tweaked... Raymond Kunst shared |
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| Historic Chicago posted Wrigley Building and the Rush Street Bridge (1921) The Rush Street Bridge is the open swing bridge in the middle of the river. It would be permanately open until it was removed because it has been replaced by the Michigan Avenue Bridge behind it. |
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| History's Mirror posted The Rush Street Bridge in Chicago, 1905, was a pivotal crossing over the Chicago River, with a swing mechanism allowing boats to pass through. On one such day, a passenger boat headed to Michigan City, Indiana, highlights the river's role in transportation. The bridge was torn down in 1920 after the Michigan Avenue Bridge was completed. Over time, four bridges have spanned the Chicago River at Rush Street, each representing the city's progress. |
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| Kevin R Doerksen commented on the above post. A view from overhead from 1920 |
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Glen Miller posted
River Street at Rush Street Bridge, 1914 or 1915. The Rush Street Bridge proved to be a serious holdup to traffic by the early twentieth century. On the south bank, Wabash and Michigan avenues both fed traffic onto River Street and then the bridge (Rush Street only ran on the north side of the river). The 1909 Plan of Chicago called for construction of a new bridge at Michigan Avenue and the redevelopment of River Street as Wacker Drive. Once the new Michigan Avenue Bridge was completed in 1920, the Rush Street Bridge was demolished.
Photographer: Hornby & Freiburg
Source: Chicago Historical Society (ICHi-04671)
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| Historic Chicago posted Rush Street Bridge (1900) ChicagoHistory [Note the C&NW grain elevator next to their State Street Yard.] |
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| Stacy Savic posted Rush street bridge sometime between 1852 and 1859. [The view is to the northeast according to comments in a Facebook posting.] Another posting with a different exposure. |
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| Stacy Savic comment |
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| Glen Miller posted
Very cool photo with a lot of detail which is typical from the 8 x 10 glass negatives from Detroit Publishing.
Chicago, 1905. "Chicago River east from Rush Street Bridge." Detroit Publishing Company glass negative, Library of Congress. (Image and text from Shorpy) The tug, Harry C. Lydon, was built in 1898 in Benton Harbor, MI. (Maritime History of the Great Lakes). She was employed by the Chicago and Great Lakes Dredge and Dock company which was a subsidiary of the Great Lakes Dredge and Dock Company, which still exists.
The tug's namesake, Harry C. Lydon, was vice-president of the Chicago & GT Lakes D & D Co. and brother of William A. Lydon, President and co-founder of the Great Lakes Dredge and Dock company. Harry died in November 1903 at age of 32.
The tug is towing a barge of what appears to be dredge spoil, perhaps related to the project referenced in the following article.
Detroit Free Press, Sep. 6, 1904
CHANNEL WORK PROGRESSING
Toledo, September 5. - Great progress has been made with the enlargement of the straight channel. Manager Murray, of the Chicago and Great Lakes Dredge and Dock company, which is doing the work, said yesterday after examining the work out in the bay, that the inner end of the channel will be finished by early in November. Thus there will be a channel 400 feet wide and twenty-one feet deep from the crib lights to the Wheeling bridge. Next summer the outer and shorter end of the channel from the crib range to the new harbor light will be completed.
The three masted schooner tied up by Kirk Factory #2 is very much a commercial vessel. She's showing her age too. These ship would have stayed in service for years after steamers became common. They'd stay in service pretty much until they wore out. Probably the most famous fishing schooner of them all, the Bluenose (the ship on the Canadian dime) was in commercial service in 1946when she went down off of Haiti.
This leading hardware dealership was the descendant of a Chicago store called Tuttle, Hibbard & Co., which took that name in 1855 when William G. Hibbard became a partner. In 1865, Hibbard was joined by Franklin F. Spencer, and the enterprise was renamed Hibbard & Spencer. By 1867, the company's annual sales of hardware had reached $1 million. When longtime company employee A. C. Bartlett became a partner in 1882, the company's name became Hibbard, Spencer, Bartlett & Co. When Spencer died in 1890, the company was already among the leading wholesalers of hardware in the United States. In 1903, the year Hibbard died, the company opened a 10-story warehouse next to State Street Bridge in downtown Chicago. In 1932, the company introduced a new line of hand tools under the brand name "True Value."
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| Growing up in Chicago posted 1921 - Aerial view of the Wrigley Building and surroundings. David Pomeroy North tower not yet completed until 1924. Historic Chicago posted Aerial View of the Wrigley Building and its surroundings. (1921) ChicagoLoopBridges shared it with the comment:
The Michigan Ave bridge was opened to traffic in 1920. In this photo, you can see the bridgehouses in various stages of construction. What looks like a barge in the river just to the left of Michigan Ave is the Rush St swing bridge which the new bridge replaced.
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| Tony Gutierrez posted New Michigan Ave. Bridge on the left and the start of the disassembling of the Rush St. Bridge on the right. |
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| Chicago's Past History of The Windy City posted Wrigley Building Chicago 1921 From Chicago Past [The swing bridge in the lower-left corner is the Rush Street Bridge. The new Michigan Avenue Bridge is out of frame to the left..] |
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| Paul Petraitis commented on his posting Here we're looking east at the Rush Street bridge about 1860. [He also comments that Fort Dearborn #2 was replaced by those grain elevators.] |
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| George Schmelzle posted Steamboats on the Chicago River, circa 1908, Chicago, IL. [Note the Kraft Plant on the right side of the bridge.] |
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Jeff Nichols posted
Rush Street Bridge, c. 1894
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| Chuck Zornig III commented on Jeff's posting From the other direction, same year. Jeff Bransky Chuck Zornig III wow. This photo was taken from the next swing bridge to the west. You can see the cribwork that protects the bridge from collisions. Was this one at State Street? Dennis DeBruler Jeff Bransky I think this view is in the same direction (looking towards the lake), just framed differently. Since the Wabash Bridge was not built until 1930 and the swing bridge was not replaced at State Street until 1903, this would be the cribbing of the State Street Bridge. |
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| BDBRCPC posted The Wrigley Building under Construction (1921) — From Chicago Past Raymond Kunst shared Corporate giants in The Loop thought Wrigley was nuts for building is tower north of the river. They never imagined that downtown would expand beyond that far north.  My great grandfather had offices in the Wrigley Building not long after it opened in the 1920s. People too, thought he was crazy, moving out of the Unity Building and relocating north of the river. He was doing renovations on Wrigley Field at the time, and I don’t think William Wrigley gave him much of a choice. The brand new bridge allowed this development north of the river to begin. The new Michigan Bridge made the Rush Bridge obsolete so it is now always open until they remove it. Author Dennis, until they remove it? The bridge is long gone! The new Michigan Bridge made the Rush Bridge obsolete so it is now always open until they remove it. Raymond Kunst I see now that I was thinking in terms of the time frame of the photo. I've tried to change the sentence to a more proper past tense. Thanks for flagging the time confusion.This is one of the few photos I've seen with both bridges because they removed the swing bridge soon after the trunnion bridge opened. |
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| Carlos Segura posted April 5, 1920 —The Rush street bridge, profanely known to Chicago motorists as the Crush street bridge, will pass to an unregretted grave within six weeks. Formal opening of the new Boulevard Link bridge to public traffic has been set by city officials for May 15, 1920 and high hopes are entertained that this date may be advanced a week or ten days. Final work on the big structure, which spans the Chicago river at Michigan avenue, and is the connecting link between the north and south side boulevard systems, is being rushed to completion. Simple ceremonies marked the beginning of the end of the Rush street bridge and the opening of the Boulevard link. The leaves of the new bridge structure have been towering in the air for several weeks, attracting the attention of the curious who often voiced wonderment as to whether they would ftt when lowered Into position. All doubts on that score vanished one night last week, when the two leaves were lowered and found to "fit to a hair," as Michael J. Faherty, Commissioner of Public Works, under whose supervislon the bridge has been built. expressly put It. After the midnight test, the bridge was again raised and the following day the bridge was "officially" lowered for the first time. The Boulevard link bridge is unquestionably the most important improvement Chicago has made yet, as it affects motor car traffic. Heretofore, the trip from the north to the south side of Chicago during rush hours has been a tedious one. By actual timing, it required all the way from 20 to 45 minutes to make the trip over the Rush street bridge from Randolph to Erie streets, a distance of less than half a mile. The timorous driver who attempted to pllot a motor car through the congestion there during rush hour would never again tackle the task after one experience. (from the 1920 April issue of Motor Age Magazine) |
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| Daniel Bovino posted In this 1922 aerial of Chicago, the tallest building is the Wrigley. The Tribune Tower was not yet built. Rush Street had a small bridge behind the Wrigley building that spanned the Chicago River. In the foreground are train sheds. They were located at the IC's Mile Post 0. This represented the beginning of the Illinois Central railroad. Paul Webb shared Scott Nielsen: That small bridge was the Rush Street Bridge and was considered one of the busiest bridges in the world at the turn of the century. I thought it was removed before 1922 but I must have been wrong. It was replaced by the Michigan Ave Bridge. The bell from that bridge is in Wisconsin. Jeff Bransky: The Rush Street swing bridge served the Northside before the Michigan Ave. bridge was built. You can see it just west of Michigan Ave. half open. It was demolished soon after this photo was taken. |
Paul Webb provided three images as comments on his share.
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