1930 Memorial, eastbound US-24: (Bridge Hunter; Historic Bridges; John A Weeks III)
1986 Bayview, westbound US-24: (Bridge Hunter; John A Weeks III)
The BNSF/CB&Q bridge is further upstream.
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| Street View from All American Park Road |
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| Street View [I wanted to get a view of the piers so that you can compare river levels with the video below.] |
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| Steve Denemark posted Quincy IL riverfront |
Randall Perkinson Photography posted three photos with the comment: "The Quincy Memorial bridge carries eastbound US-24 across the Mississippi River at Quincy, Illinois. The bridge was opened to traffic in 1930."
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4 of 9 images posted by Qcy From Above with the comment:
🌉 Memorial Bridge: Then & NowThis week, a wave of questions has surfaced about the integrity of the Memorial Bridge in Quincy, Illinois, and with the bridge currently closed, it’s understandable why so many people are concerned. When a structure this vital goes quiet, it doesn’t just interrupt traffic; it stirs memories, worries, and a deeper curiosity about what this bridge has endured, what it was built to do, and what may come next.Stretching nearly a mile across the Mississippi, the Quincy Soldiers Memorial Bridge has carried generations between Illinois and Missouri and remains an everyday lifeline on Route 24. As of today, it has served this community for almost 96 years, a familiar silhouette that feels permanent, even though its creation was anything but easy.From Quincy’s earliest days, the Mississippi was both blessing and barrier. For the city’s first century, crossing to Missouri meant boats and ferries, workable in fair weather, but unreliable when ice tightened its grip in winter. A railroad bridge in the late 1800s helped, but the arrival of the automobile age changed everything. By the 1920s, traffic demands were surging, and the older crossings simply couldn’t keep up with the new reality of daily, motor-driven commerce and travel.Quincy’s leaders finally moved decisively in January 1928, when the City Council considered a proposal advanced by the Quincy Chamber of Commerce: build a bridge financed locally rather than waiting on federal funding. The council agreed unanimously. The right to build went to the Kelly-Atkinson Company of Chicago, with provisions allowing the city to buy the bridge in the future. The company accepted $250,000 in bond payments, and Quincy launched a community bond drive for a project estimated at roughly $1.25 million. The bridge was named in honor of the men and women of Quincy and Adams County who died in America’s wars, a dedication that still gives the structure its enduring weight.On June 16, 1928, Mayor Charles L. Weems turned the first spade of earth, and the project surged forward into two years of grueling work, work that quickly revealed how unforgiving the river could be. There were early problems: a derrick boat sank, and the delivery of lumber needed for concrete forms moved slowly, delaying progress. Then the job turned dangerous in a string of incidents that read like a hard-luck chronicle from an era when safety standards were still evolving. A rigger was killed by a steam hammer weighing several tons. Hoisting engineers walked off the job. A concrete mixer boat caught fire. And in 1929, tragedy struck again when the superintendent of construction, Ernest W. St. Onge, died in an airplane crash.The following summer brought more loss. Two additional men died, one by drowning, and another from the “bends,” a deadly condition caused by air-pressure changes in the caisson work used to construct the central main pier. Then, on October 22, 1929, a bridge worker stumbled and fell to his death, marking the fourth fatality tied to the project. These were not distant headlines. They were human lives, paid into the river and the steel, and they deserve to be remembered whenever we admire the bridge’s clean lines and confident span.Finally, in May 1930, Quincy’s long-awaited crossing opened to the public. The first car crossed during an official inspection on May 19, 1930, driven by engineer I. L. Pesses, accompanied by W. Emery Lancaster and Mayor Weems. Early travelers paid a 50-cent round-trip toll, a fee that stayed in place for more than a decade until 1945, when the city had paid off the bonds and tolls were eliminated.Beneath the visible structure, another story unfolded, one of labor, skill, and endurance. During construction, crews known as “Sand Hogs” worked in arduous conditions below the Mississippi in pressurized environments. Many were African American, and the work required short shifts because the air pressure in the caissons could be dangerous. It’s easy to look at the bridge and think of it as a finished monument; it’s harder, but necessary, to remember the human effort that made it possible.By the 1970s, the Memorial Bridge, still strong, was simply too narrow for modern traffic demands. Congestion grew, and Quincy needed relief. That came in August 1987, when the Bayview Bridge opened to carry westbound traffic into West Quincy, easing the pressure on the older span.Now, as the Memorial Bridge approaches its centennial era of service, the conversation is turning again toward Quincy’s next crossing chapter. A replacement bridge has been proposed, and studies are underway to explore a new bridge, its location, design, and how it can meet modern safety and traffic needs while honoring the role the Memorial Bridge has played for nearly a century, and the age old question of funding looms large.In many ways, it feels like Quincy is standing in the same river-crossing tension it faced in the 1920s, only now the bridge isn’t a dream. It’s a legacy. And whatever comes next, the story of how this span was built, through persistence, sacrifice, and a community determined to connect, should remain part of how we remember it.
Robert Turek shared
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| B King Line posted Patriotic Bayview Bridge tonight! [July 2, 2021] |
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| Richard Martin posted Quincy |
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| Screenshot from video posted by Tom Nichols [The river level is still below this walkway.] |
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| water.weather.gov |
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| John Weeks III |
The Quincy Memorial Bridge is an extremely unusual and significant bridge due to its extremely large non-cantilever continuous truss spans. It is a continuous modified Warren truss. It is nearly a trapezoidal truss, except that the top chord changes its angle slightly towards the ends of the bridge, barely allows it to be a polygonal Warren. It is unusual because most bridges of this size were built as cantilever bridges. However, the Quincy Bridge is not cantilevered, it is just continuous. [Historic Bridges]
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| Jeff Eckstein posted |
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| John Weeks III |
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| Jeff Eckstein posted |
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| Gabe Gerberding posted Quincy looking West. |
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| Justin Fogerty posted Bayview Bridge in Quincy on Christmas Night |
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| Richard Martin posted Going up to work David L Fields in Quincy upper fleet. |
Conner Blaukat posted five photos with the comment: "The two US-24 bridges crossing the Mississippi in Quincy, Illinois."
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Sue Nichols posted four photos with the comment: "Bayview and Memorial bridges in Quincy illinois."
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