Mormon Bridge | |
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![]() Mormon Bridge in August 2022 as seen from North Omaha, Nebraska going into Iowa. | |
Coordinates | 41°20′44″N95°57′26″W / 41.345556°N 95.957222°W |
Carries | 4 lanes of ![]() |
Crosses | Missouri River |
Locale | Pottawattamie County, Iowa and Florence, Nebraska |
Other name(s) | Missouri River I-680 Bridge |
Maintained by | Nebraska Department of Transportation |
Characteristics | |
Design | Twin Cantilever Through truss bridge |
Total length | 1,603.1 feet (489 m) |
Longest span | 128 m |
Clearance above | 18.1 feet (6 m) |
History | |
Opened | 1952 1975 (westbound) | (eastbound)
Statistics | |
Daily traffic | 7,845 [1] |
Location | |
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The Mormon Bridge is a bridge composed of two cantilevers that crosses the Missouri River connecting Pottawattamie County, Iowa with the Florence neighborhood of Omaha, Nebraska via Interstate 680 (Iowa-Nebraska). The bridge is officially called the Mormon Pioneer Memorial Bridge due to its location on the historic Mormon Trail, which passed nearby.
The earliest consistent crossing of the Missouri River at the current bridge's location dates back to 1846, when the Mormons operated a ferry at this location as a component of the Mormon Trail. [2] Ferries continued to be operated sporadically at this location over the course of the next decade, [3] however, the section of the Missouri was considered ideal for a bridge due to the riverbed being rock. [2] According to the program from the opening ceremonies, the first attempt to bridge the Missouri was made in 1856. [4] This attempt, by the Florence Bridge Company, [3] obtained Congressional approval, but was not completed due to funding constraints. In 1872, the site was considered by Union Pacific prior to their construction of the Union Pacific Missouri River Bridge and in 1885, construction actually began on a Chicago, St. Paul, Minneapolis, and Omaha Railway bridge before being abandoned. [3]
Attempts to build a bridge were also made in 1922 and 1936, however, it was not until the 1950s that a bridge was finally completed. Previous attempts had required a specific franchise from the United States Congress to cross a navigable waterway. In 1946, Congress passed the General Bridges Act, which allowed for "construction, maintenance, and operation of bridges and approaches thereto over the navigable waters of the United States" by public bodies [4] and repealed provisions of the Rivers and Harbors Act of 1899. This allowed the State of Nebraska to pass legislation creating the North Omaha Bridge Commission and put the wheels in motion for the successful establishment of a permanent river crossing.
The first bridge was dedicated on June 1, 1953, following a groundbreaking in May 1951. [4] It connected Nebraska Highway 36 with unsigned Iowa Highway 988. It was originally a toll bridge operated by the North Omaha Bridge Commission in order to pay off the $3.45 million [4] in bonds issued to finance construction. Spencer W. Kimball, President of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church), was the last to pay the toll on April 21, 1979, when the second bridge to the north of the original bridge was added, and it became part of the Interstate Highway System.
In 2018, the original bridge underwent an $11 million refurbishment that involved lead paint remediation, repairs to the bridge deck, and a new asphalt driving surface. [3]
Council Bluffs is a city in and the county seat of Pottawattamie County, Iowa, United States. It is the most populous city in Southwest Iowa, as well as the third largest and a primary city of the Omaha-Council Bluffs Metropolitan Area. It is located on the east bank of the Missouri River, across from Omaha, Nebraska. Until about 1853 Council Bluffs was known as Kanesville. Kanesville was the historic starting point of the Mormon Trail. Kanesville is also the northernmost anchor town of the other emigrant trails because there was a steam-powered boat which ferried the settlers' wagons and cattle across the Missouri River. In 1869, the first transcontinental railroad to California was connected to the existing U.S. rail network at Council Bluffs.
Interstate 80 (I-80) is an east–west transcontinental freeway that crosses the United States from downtown San Francisco, California, to Teaneck, New Jersey, in the New York metropolitan area. The highway was designated in 1956 as one of the original routes of the Interstate Highway System; its final segment was opened in 1986. The second-longest Interstate Highway in the United States after I-90, it runs through many major cities, including Oakland, Sacramento, Reno, Salt Lake City, Omaha, Des Moines, and Toledo and passes within 10 miles (16 km) of Chicago, Cleveland, and New York City.
Interstate 480 (I-480) is a 4.9-mile-long (7.9 km) auxiliary Interstate Highway that connects I-80 in Downtown Omaha, Nebraska, with I-29 in Council Bluffs, Iowa. The portion of I-480 in Nebraska has been named the Gerald R. Ford Expressway, named in honor of the former president, who was a native of Omaha. For most of its length, I-480 is overlapped by a US Highway; for two miles (3.2 km) with US Highway 75 (US 75) and for one mile (1.6 km) with US 6. I-480 includes the Grenville Dodge Memorial Bridge over the Missouri River.
The Mormon Trail is the 1,300-mile (2,100 km) long route from Illinois to Utah on which Mormon pioneers traveled from 1846–47. Today, the Mormon Trail is a part of the United States National Trails System, known as the Mormon Pioneer National Historic Trail.
Winter Quarters was an encampment formed by approximately 2,500 members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints as they waited during the winter of 1846–47 for better conditions for their trek westward. It followed a preliminary tent settlement some 3½ miles west at Cutler's Park. Members of the LDS faith built more than 800 cabins at the Winter Quarters settlement. Located in present-day North Omaha overlooking the Missouri River, the settlement remained populated until 1848.
The National Register of Historic Places in the United States is a register including buildings, sites, structures, districts, and objects. The Register automatically includes all National Historic Landmarks as well as all historic areas administered by the U.S. National Park Service. Since its introduction in 1966, more than 90,000 separate listings have been added to the register.
Forgottonia, also spelled Forgotonia, is the name given to a 16-county region in Western Illinois in the late 1960s and early 1970s. This geographic region forms the distinctive western bulge of Illinois that is roughly equivalent to "The Tract", the Illinois portion of the Military Tract of 1812, along and west of the Fourth Principal Meridian. Since this wedge-shaped region lies between the Illinois and Mississippi rivers, it has historically been isolated from the eastern portion of Central Illinois.
Interstate 680 (I-680) in Nebraska and Iowa is the northern bypass of the Omaha–Council Bluffs metropolitan area. I-680 spans 16.49 miles (26.54 km) from its southern end in western Omaha, Nebraska, to its eastern end near Crescent, Iowa. The freeway passes through a diverse range of scenes and terrains—the urban setting of Omaha, the Missouri River and its valley, the rugged Loess Hills, and the farmland of Pottawattamie County, Iowa.
The Ak-Sar-Ben Bridge was a Whipple through truss bridge that was the first road bridge to cross the Missouri River connecting Omaha, Nebraska and Council Bluffs, Iowa. It was replaced in 1966 by the Interstate 480 girder bridge.
The Plattsmouth Bridge is a truss bridge over the Missouri River connecting Cass County, Nebraska, and Mills County, Iowa at Plattsmouth, Nebraska. Until 2014, it carried U.S. Highway 34 across the river.
The South Omaha Veterans Memorial Bridge was a continuous warren through truss bridge over the Missouri River connecting Omaha, Nebraska with Council Bluffs, Iowa via U.S. Highway 275.
Florence is a neighborhood in Omaha, Nebraska, United States on the city's north end and originally one of the oldest cities in Nebraska. It was incorporated by the Nebraska Territorial Legislature on March 10, 1857. The site of Winter Quarters for Mormon migrants traveling west, it has the oldest cemetery for people of European descent and oldest standing gristmill in Nebraska. Florence was the site of an illegal territorial legislature in 1858. Given the high concentration of National Register of Historic Places in the neighborhood, it is regarded as "the historic front door to Omaha as well as the state."
Fort Lisa (1812–1823) was established in 1812 in what is now North Omaha in Omaha, Nebraska by famed fur trader Manuel Lisa and the Missouri Fur Company, which was based in Saint Louis. The fort was associated with several firsts in Nebraska history: Lisa was the first European farmer in Nebraska; it was the first settlement by American citizens set up in the then-recent Louisiana Purchase; Lisa's wife was the first woman resident of European descent in Nebraska; and the first steamboat to navigate Nebraska waters, the Western Engineer, arrived at Fort Lisa in September 1819.
Interstate 80 (I-80) in the US state of Nebraska runs east from the Wyoming state border across the state to Omaha. Construction of the stretch of I-80 spanning the state was completed on October 19, 1974. Nebraska was the first state in the nation to complete its mainline Interstate Highway System.
Interstate 80 (I-80) is a transcontinental Interstate Highway in the United States, stretching from San Francisco, California, to Teaneck, New Jersey. In Iowa, the highway travels west to east through the center of the state. It enters the state at the Missouri River in Council Bluffs and heads east through the southern Iowa drift plain. In the Des Moines metropolitan area, I-80 meets up with I-35 and the two routes bypass Des Moines together. On the northern side of Des Moines, the Interstates split and I-80 continues east. In eastern Iowa, it provides access to the University of Iowa in Iowa City. Northwest of the Quad Cities in Walcott is Iowa 80, the world's largest truck stop. I-80 passes along the northern edge of Davenport and Bettendorf and leaves Iowa via the Fred Schwengel Memorial Bridge over the Mississippi River into Illinois.
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