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| Frank Smitty Schmidt commented on a posting The St Marys Challenger was at one time named the Elton Hoyt II. The vessel was renamed Alex D. Chisholm in 1952 following the launch into the Interlake fleet of a new hull christened Elton Hoyt II. Here's a picture of the new in 1952 Elton Hoyt II being towed through Joliet on it's way to Chicago. It was built in MD and towed up the Mississippi and Illinois Rivers and the Illinois Waterway on it's way to the Great Lakes. The pilot house was installed in South Chicago before it went into service. [Per a comment below, the Elton Hoyt II became the Michipicoten. The predecessor for the St Marys Challenger was the Medusa Challenger. There were a couple of shipyards along the Calumet River, so I don't know which one Frank means by "South Chicago."] |
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| Frank Smitty Schmidt commented on a posting The Illinois Waterway opened in the mid 1930's. The St Lawrence Seaway opened in 1959. From the mid 30's until the late 50's, the Chicago River, Illinois Waterway, and Mississippi River was the only connection between the Great Lakes and the oceans of the world. During WWII, ship building on both coasts were extremely strained, so there were a lot of submarines and smaller ships built on the great lakes and moved to the gulf. Here's a picture of a smaller ship that was raised on pontoons, tied to a barge, and moved to the gulf for final completion and launch. It just coming up on the Rock Island Railroad Bridge in Joliet. Yes, it would have came down the Chicago River in it's journey. |
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| Frank Smitty Schmidt commented on a posting Surprisingly not very often. They were usually taken on the Chicago River. In fact the pictures of the Marine Angel posted were taken in 1953 while it was being moved to the great lakes. |
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| Frank Smitty Schmidt commented on a posting This is a Gato class sub that was built in Sheboygan, and moved to the gulf on a floating drydock. Quite possibly you would have seen this on the Chicago River during the war. Dennis DeBruler That is setting in a lock with a small drop in water level. So that one is probably taking the Cal Sag. But I read that one of the few times the swing bridges on the Chicago Sanitary & Ship Canal were moved was during WWII to pass submarines built in Manitowoc, WI and Grebe mine-sweepers built on the North Branch. |
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| Dennis DeBruler shared n 1951 the air rights over the north train shed of the Union Station had not yet been sold. This ship looks tall enough that I think all of the railroad swing bridges on the Sanitary and Ship Canal would have had to be rotated to let it pass. From what I have been able to find, 1954 was the last year those bridges moved. [The shared post by Andrew Haenish has a lot of information about the ship.] |
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| FashionPro [Before the IBM Building and Marina Towers. You can see the "mainline" of the Navy Pier branch.] |
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Chicago 1955 Looking east down the Chicago River As a barge inches its way under the bridge From Chicago Past Philip Wizenick That was the largest ship ever to pass through the Chicago River. She was too long for the controlling lock at the lake. She ( I have forgotten the ships name and am too lazy to look it up ) was towed in, the outer gates opened and the tugs strained to pull her against the flood of water from the lake. When she cleared the inner gates, they were closed and she was towed out into the lake. Dennis DeBruler The advertisement on the side of the Kraft building is "Jim Beam." I did not realize whiskey was one of Kraft's products back in 1955. Or maybe Jim Beam was willing to pay a lot of money to use the side of Kraft's building. This is also an excellent view of the C&NW State Street Yard before Marina City bought the air rights. |
Some comments on a posting concerning the mobility of the Illinois Northern swing bridge (and the other swing bridges on the CS&SC).
Ramon Rhodes Anthony Cac the bridge has only been opened a handful of times since it was built around 1902. There never was any machinery installed to open or close the bridge. The same is true for all of the railroad bridges east of the 21st lift bridge west to the bridge at Lemont.
Fred Van Dorpe Ramon Rhodes Thats not true. Other bridges along the Ship and Sanitary Canal like the IC bridge near Kedzie ave. and the 8 track bridge at Ash St. junction are built to be moveable for a reason. There was definitely machinery originally on all the moveable type bridges for them to be opened. Its just been removed long ago. A bridge doesnt get built to be opened for boat traffic "only a handful of times." This article even states that the machinery for opening the various bridges was removed.
https://www.cityofchicago.org/.../Historic_Chicago...
Ramon Rhodes Fred Van Dorpe I wrote a paper on the railroad bridges along the Sanitary Canal. My research indicated that none of the swing bridges were ever motorized. They had to be manually opened. That happened about 7-8 times during WW2 so that minesweepers built up river could reach the Gulf of Mexico without having to go through the St. Lawrence Seaway and the Atlantic.
Perhaps the person who wrote the article isn't aware of this. Note that there are no historic photographs anywhere of the swing spans from the CN bridge at Kedzie Avenue all the way down to Lemont open.
I will continue to do more research on this, but I believe that what I posted is the truth.
Ramon Rhodes Fred Van Dorpe I recently found the paper that I wrote on the bridges and to be specific, none of the bridges were built with turning machinery in them. It was a cost-saving measure.
Briefly during World War II, machinery was installed in them, but it was later removed. 1953 was the last time they were opened and I suspect it was probably done manually.
Dennis DeBruler So the Marine Angle going from ocean to Great Lakes service in 1953 was the last time the bridges moved. https://industrialscenery.blogspot.com/.../marine-angel... Update: Grebe Shipyard made three more minesweepers for the Korean War. The last one was shipped in 1954. So the Marine Angle was not the last ship to cause the bridges to swing. http://www.shipbuildinghistory.com/.../yachtsmall/grebe.htm [Or maybe the mine boats were low enough that the bridges did not have to be opened.]
The August 6, 1942 edition of "The Lemont Herald" has an interesting article titled "MOVING BRIDGES TO PERMIT NAVY CANAL SHIPPING" "Local Bridges Being Put Into Shape to Air War Movement Here"
ReplyDeleteHere are some excerpts from the article:
Conversion of eight bridges between the mouth of the Chicago river and Lockport into moveable spans to permit the movement of larger boats down the Illinois waterway, is now under way between Lemont and Chicago, according to Lieut. Comm. H.L. Mathews, officer in charge of the project for the U.S. navy.
The Stephens street highway bridge across the stream in Lemont, has been equipped during the past two weeks so that it may now be turned and a large crew of workmen is engaged upon the Santa Fe railroad bridge in Lemont, installing turntables and motors to equip that bridge for turning.
All of the Lockport and Romeo bridges are already moveable for boat passage and the completion of the work on the Santa Fe railroad bridge will leave only the upper waters of the canal to the Chicago river to be converted into movable structures. It is expected that the Santa Fe conversion will require some three to four months' work.
I missed your last paragraph when I posted, sorry.
DeleteWhen did the Chicago Ship and Sanitary Canal bridges open?
ReplyDeleteSanitary canal bridge basics. Chicago is flat, there were a lot of railroads before the canal was built, and they're flat, too. Digging a sewer is one thing, but forcing ships through it is another. The ships can't go under the railroads so the railroad bridges have to move out of the ship's way. I'm sure the railroads loved that.
All except one bridge built by the Sanitary Commission on the canal were pretty basic swing types, center piers southwest to Willow Springs, where they changed to bob-tails (the banks are limestone there). The first (most northeast) bridge is Western Ave, which has a history. Swing, fixed, lift, whatever it is today (2023, it may not last much longer). Next is the "Eight-track" strange railroad drawbridge, sort of its own story. Opened fixed, finished to a different design. Impressive for a basically unsuitable type of bridge. Then you go to the center piers, the only thing notable is some of the lengths. Both the canal and railroads run at diagonals, the bridge for the Illinois Central crossed at such an angle that it needed a 480 foot span to cross a 200 foot gap.
In Willow Springs, the bob-tails start, but they all look about the same, too. The Canal Commission wasn't big on style, they only wanted to flush the toilets. Later typical Chicago bascule bridges and high (about 40 foot clearance) street/road bridge were added.
All the railroad bridges, including the Eight-track, are still there and all, except for the (now defunct) Illinois Northern, still have heavy traffic. The Indiana Harbor Belt was damaged in 1964 and is now fixed.
All the street/road swing bridges are gone, replaced by high bridges, from Lawndale/Summit around 1965 to 135th St. Romeoville, maybe 1997?
Do the Chicago Ship and Sanitary Canal bridges move? Sort of, yes, sort of, no. Which bridge when?
DeleteI don't think any bridge north of 135th St. Romeo ("ville" later) had any machinery before 1942, when the Navy installed it on them. And really used it. The submarines were a small part of 1200+ DEs, LSTs, cargo ships, tankers, and a slew of sub chasers, small mine craft, tugs and harbor craft. Anything over 17 foot tall (the Eight-track's clearance) needed open bridges.
By 1948 the machinery was still in place but needed serious repairs. In 1950 the Navy left, no more bridgetenders or maintenance on their dime. They wanted to store the machinery in government warehouses but Chicago said no, they'd leave it on the bridges. After (maybe before) that they could still be opened "by hand", whatever that means.
Th Indiana Harbor Belt RR had a wreck on their bridge in 1964 (a train went in) and the patch-job is fixed at 19 foot. That's it. In 2022 Chicago asked the Coast Guard (controlling agency now???) if they could put a new fixed bridge in at Western Ave. The bridge is still technically moveable, even without the towers?
Did 135th St. and 9th Ave. open earlier? In September 1942 a story says that the Navy would put machinery on 16 bridges, but there were 18. In 1950 machinery was in place on 18 bridges, 16 had temporary equipment and 2 had permanent. There was a 16 installed 2 refurbished, too. Two bridges were always different. I know that 135th had a tender's shack on it, the bridge is right there in a Forest Preserve. 9th St. too? Could the two southmost be moving all along, or at least after the Illinois Waterway opened in 1933? Today it seems that river tows are broken down south of Lemont, maybe always since 1933? How late did those two operate?
Sources
DeleteMost of this comes from the Chicago Tribune archives. I try to double-check everything, often with blogs.
(bridgehunter.com) is always a good read, but I didn't use it much. It's broken now but you can usually go directly to individual bridges, Industrial History usually has a link.
(https://www.greatlakesvesselhistory.com/) was for the laker's names and types.
Most of the links I use I have seen on Industrial History somewhere.
Nothing that Sammy or Joon ever post comes from Wikipedia.
Sammy D III also tried adding this information as a comment. But the Blogger wouldn't post it. So I will.
ReplyDeleteWhat went through?
Special moves. Dredges, derricks, there is a large "tank" going through the Eight-track.
World War II ships built on the Great Lakes. The twenty-eight submarines, of course, but how about the twenty-eight destroyer escort types from Bay City, Mich? Cargo ships up to 438 feet long from Duluth? Escorts from Pullman in Lake Calumet. Tankers (one hit the Summit bridge in September 1943). Plus a bunch of smaller cargo ships, tugs, minesweepers, patrol boats, whatever. The Trib says more than 1,200 ships went through.
The Great Lakes Vessel Sales Act of 1950 completely turned things around, instead of new ships going south old ships started coming north. 1951 saw converted cargo ship Cliffs Victory (ex-Notre Dame Victory) and the Tom M Girdler (ex-Louis McHenry Howe), Thomas F Patton (ex-Troy H. Browning, Scott E. Land), and Charles M. White (ex-Mt. Mansfield) cargo triplets. The Joseph H. Thompson (ex-Marine Robin) was originally a tanker. The McKee Sons (ex-Marine Angel) and Morning Star (ex-?) went through in 1953.
In 1956 the Destroyer escort "Courtney" (not actually named until after commissioning) went through southbound, her sister "Lester" must have gone through shortly after. The ex-tanker Joseph S Young (ex-Archer's Hope?) went through in 1957. Shortly after that the dredge Paraiso, coming from the Panama Canal, made the last through trip that I could find, scheduled for July 30, 1957. It was going either to Chicago or Manitowoc (back home?), then to work on the St. Lawrence Seaway.
There was one more move, the Army dredge Rock Island in 1961, but it was local, going to Joliet to be on stand-by. And I must have missed something.
Sources
Most of this comes from the Chicago Tribune archives. (https://www.greatlakesvesselhistory.com/) was for the laker's names and types.
Nothing that Sammy or Joon ever post comes from Wikipedia.
WHICH BRIDGES WERE WHERE?
ReplyDeleteI am going southwest on the Sanitary Canal from Western Ave. to Lockport, the way the water flows. Both the canal and Illinois Waterway are measured south to north so their numbers are reversed.
WESTERN AVE. TO HARLEM AVE.
WESTERN AVE. is the eastern-most bridge on the Sanitary Canal. It started as a four-lane swing bridge in 1900, in 1940 Chicago replaced it with a new bridge with eight lanes. The problem was that it was fixed with a fourteen foot clearance when the Feds wanted forty. Opened in 1940, in 1942 the Navy made them cut out the center, put up towers, and make it a lift bridge. It was reconstructed in 1996, that may be when the towers came down? In 2022 the wheels were turning to replace the "existing deteriorating structure".
The "EIGHT TRACK BRIDGE", four parallel spans, has a back story and was opened as temporarily fixed. The Sanitary District had to pass a law in 1907 to get things going. In the mean-time the Sweitzer design had shown serious problems on the Chicago River, maybe that's why the new bridge was built to a different design than first planned? What we see today opened in 1910. In 2023 Google Maps looks like five tracks on three spans are active.
CALIFORNIA AVE. is a twin-leaf pony-truss bascule bridge opened in 1926. It's the first and typical of the bascule bridges. In 2023 it has been closed for a five-month reconstruction.
The CHICAGO AND ILLINOIS WESTERN RR (now CN) has a strange Rall drawbridge over the "Collateral Channel" (now a slip) but it doesn't cross the main channel and probably has never been lifted for traffic.
An ILLINOIS CENTRAL RR. (now CN) owned company crossed diagonally on a 480-foot two-track swing bridge. It's the longest swing bridge but otherwise typical.
KEDZIE AVE. was built in 1899 (or 1909, maybe there was a temporary bridge?). It was replaced with the current concrete "convertible" bridge in 1970. It was built at a fixed twenty-three foot clearance but the center truss is separate, towers can be put up to convert it to a lift.
The ILLINOIS NORTHERN RR., originally owned by International Harvester, is gone, their swing bridge is still there but no tracks go to it. It's the only railroad bridge out of service.
PULASKI RD. (Crawford Ave. before 1952) was a bascule bridge opened in 1930. It was reconstructed in 1994, I wonder if it is a "convertible" like Kedzie Ave.?
The BELT RAILWAY comes from everywhere north, crosses at almost a right angle, and goes everywhere south.
CICERO AVE. was a bascule bridge opened in 1927, a third span (total six lanes) was added in 1966.
CENTRAL AVE. was built as a high bridge in 1970, before then Central ended at 39th St. on the north side. It began a two-year reconstruction in 2023.
The SANTA FE (now BNSF) westbound on the south side of the canal crossed to the north side, they crossed back over to the south side at Lemont.
HARLEM AVE. was a bascule bridge opened in 1931.
Some sources
ReplyDeleteUS Army Corps of Engineers 2013 bridge clearances are here, page 1 and 2: (https://www.mvr.usace.army.mil/Portals/48/docs/Nav/NavigationCharts/ILW/AppendixB.pdf)
Citi-data has a mountain of facts but they are really serious and hard to understand. This is Willow Springs bridges (roads only, not rail): (https://www.city-data.com/bridges/bridges-Willow-Springs-Illinois.html)
The Chicago Tribune archives are subscription.
HistoricBridges.org doesn't usually help me much but has excellent pics of the Kedzie Ave. swing bridge in use, the convertible being built, and the swing being torn down: (https://historicbridges.org/bridges/browser/?bridgebrowser=illinois/kedzie/)
The US Geological Survey, of course: (https://ngmdb.usgs.gov/topoview/viewer/#4/39.98/-100.02)
Google, Google Maps, Google Earth.
Industrial History probably has every link I've ever hit posted somewhere and is excellent background.
Nothing that Sammy or Joon post comes from Wikipedia.
Oops, forgot these:
ReplyDeleteTHE STEVENSON EXPRESSWAY (Interstate 55), opened in 1964, put a high bridge over the canal.
1ST. AVE. and its on-ramp high bridges were part of a new alignment built to intersect with I 55. It replaced LAWNDALE AVE., an original swing bridge.
THE BALTIMORE AND OHIO CHICAGO TERMINAL RR. owns the next bridge (I thought it was the IHB). In 1964 a train damaged the bridge, the next one through went in the drink (yuck). The south span came from the East somewhere (parent company B&O?) and the north side is whatever. They got it up in two weeks, it was blocking both a major RR yard and the canal itself. That might be the first low bridge officially fixed. It's still in use.
LA GRANGE RD. (US 45 and sometimes US 12) was just 5th Ave (Ill. 46) on the USGS map in 1929 (surveyed in 1925), it went south then wandered off west near Hodgkins. There was nothing south of the canal at all. In 1933 it was also US 45 and crossed the canal, intersected with Archer Ave. (Ill. 4A/later 171), then continued south to Alabama. The 1938 aerial photo shows it, and its shadow shows that it was a high truss with a long, raised approach on the north. The current bridge was built in 1976 and reconstructed in 2022.
THE TRI-STATE TOLLWAY (Interstate 294) threw the "Mile Long
Bridge" (not quite) above everything in 1958. They're finishing a huge reconstruction on the bridge in 2023.
ILL. 83 (near Sag Bridge) is a high truss built in 1934 and reconstructed in 1997.
WILLOW SPRINGS RD. is the first of the bob-tail bridges.
The canal narrows and the walls switch to limestone just north of it, so the shorter bridge can be supported on one (north) bank instead of a center pier. It was replaced with a high bridge in 1976.
THE SANTA FE (BNSF) crosses back from north to south side just north of Lemont.
LEMONT RD. was a swing and until the high bridge was opened in 1983.
INTERSTATE 355 is a high bridge opened in 2007, phase 2 of I 355
135TH ST. (Romeo Rd.) was an original road swing-bridge, I think it was one of two that opened regularly. It was closed in 1990 and a new high bridge was built in 1997 (and reconstructed in 1998???). The old bridge has been moved around a corner into Schneider's Passage Forest Preserve.
9TH ST. LOCKPORT (Ill. 7) was the final road swing bridge, and I think it was the second bridge that opened regularly. Until 1968, when it was hit twice by barges and closed. I don't know if the swing bridge ever opened before it was replaced by a high bridge in 1971.
Elton Hoyt II became the Michipicoten, not the St Marys Challenger. About a week ago Michipicoten's hull got a 13 ft crack. She is docked in Thunder Bay at the moment.
ReplyDeleteThanks for the correction. I don't want to change the quote of Frank's comment so I added the correction right after it. I'm continuing to note information about the MICHIPICOTEN accident in https://industrialscenery.blogspot.com/2017/07/old-lakers.html#Michipicoten
DeleteVery interesting. I actually witnessed Cicero avenue bridge go up for the first time. The vessel we were on was heavily ballasted to get under the bridges from Sag Junction to Downtown. They lifted Cicero for us even though we didn't ask them to. It is a close squeeze under there with a normal air draft of 18 feet or so.
ReplyDeleteYou are talking about the third span, in 1966? I take it that all three went up? That must have been a test opening? I don't know about testing bridges, would that be the only time it ever opened? You may have seen the last bridge movement north of 135th St. Close to the last, at least.
Delete