Eads Bridge is the St. Louis bridge that opened in 1874 as the first major bridge to use steel arches.
It crosses the Mississippi River and was named for its designer, James B. Eads. The bridge used three steel arch spans supported by massive stone piers, combining an innovative metal structure with foundations sunk deep into the riverbed.
Eads Bridge was built to connect St. Louis with Illinois and strengthen the city’s position as a transportation center. Its construction was technically ambitious because workers used pneumatic caissons to build the foundations underwater.
The bridge carried road and pedestrian traffic on its upper level and railway traffic below. It is sometimes confused with later St. Louis bridges, but Eads Bridge is especially important in engineering history because its steel arches helped demonstrate the practical potential of large-scale steel construction.