In 1853, it originally was planned that Iowa’s first railroad the Mississippi & Missouri would connect Davenport with Council Bluffs, this railroad went bankrupt before getting even halfway across the state. Organized on June 6, 1859, the Chicago & Northwestern Railroad first officially used its title in 1861. The parent of the organization, the Galena & Chicago Union Railroad incorporated in 1836 was the first railroad West of Chicago reaching the Mississippi River. Eliminating Galena and adding Northwestern, the G. & C. became the Chicago & Northwestern on June 2, 1864 and the firm grew through constructions, purchases and mergers to service nine Midwestern states. In 1869, the company assisted in the completion of the first transcontinental railroad carrying construction materials to Council Bluffs and the Union Pacific on January 17, 1867. Prior to this and in 1862, when the Union Pacific Railroad track laying crews headed West from Omaha there was no railroad connecting to it from the East. After the Chicago & Northwestern Railway reached Council Bluffs, and until a bridge was built the railroad for awhile in the bitterly cold winter months tried running freight trains between Omaha and Council Bluffs over the frozen Missouri River. In the warmer months, the Union Pacific Transfer Company maintained a ferry service from 1866 to 1872. Under the direction of Civil War engineer Greenville Dodge and at a cost of 1.75 million dollars, the railroad employed 500 men over three years to build a bridge to cross the Missouri River. To place the piers for this bridge, iron columns were sunk into the water and air pressure was used to displace the water in the column, at which point men entered the column with picks and shovels to sink the column as much as 17 feet per day. The deepest the men worked was 82 feet below the surface of the water, during which time they were exposed to air pressure that was 54 pounds per square inch. The columns were then filled with rock and concrete to form a base for the masonry piers above the water line.
