1928: A Truss Bridge Crossing the Mississippi River is Officially Opened by a Four-Year-Old

June 9, 1928

A five-span truss bridge crossing a section of the Mississippi River between Missouri and Illinois was inaugurated with considerable fanfare. This vehicular bridge was named after James Beauchamp “Champ” Clark (1850-1921), a U.S. congressman who represented Missouri’s 9^th district from 1893 until his death. In addition, Clark served as the 36^th speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives between 1911 and 1919.

The Associated Press (AP) described in great detail the various activities that marked the Saturday debut of the Champ Clark Bridge. This news agency reported, “Starting early with concerts by a collection of five bands, an air circus, balloon ascensions, a street carnival, and other amusements, the occasion took on a more serious aspect with the dedication ceremonies.”

The public officials participating in this late-morning dedication included Samuel A. Baker (1874-1933); Lennington “Len” Small (1862-1936), governor of Illinois; Albert I. Beach (1883-1939), mayor of Kansas City; and William Hale Thompson (1869-1944), mayor of Chicago. Small and Thompson drove the last rivet – a gold one, as a matter of fact – on the Illinois side of the bridge. Baker and Beach, for their part, drove the last rivet on the Missouri side.

In another major event of the program, Champ Clark’s four-year-old grandson Champ Clark, III (1923-2002) officially opened the bridge by cutting a wide ribbon that had been draped across the central section of the structure. Champ the 3^rd then led the governors, the mayors, and quite a few other dignitaries to the western terminus of the bridge. It was there that Genevieve Clark-Thomson (1894-1981), who was both young Champ’s aunt and the daughter of the late congressman and House speaker, unveiled a memorial tablet honoring the person for whom the bridge was named.

The bridge remained in service until being permanently closed on May 3, 2019. It was demolished later that year. A replacement bridge – likewise bearing Champ Clark’s name – was opened two months later. Four years earlier, a federal TIGER grant for a new bridge had been jointly awarded to the Missouri Department of Transportation and Illinois Department of Transportation. The original Champ Clark Bridge, which is depicted in the accompanying photo taken in 2007, was demolished in the later part of 2019.

Photo Credit: Mdcastle at the English Wikipedia (licensed at the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license at https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/deed.en

For more information on the first version of Champ Clark Bridge, please check out https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Champ_Clark_Bridge_(1928)