"It is indeed a structure of perfection and beauty unsurpassable, and I never tire of it," Walt Whitman, 1882

The Eads bridge was the first bridge across the Mississippi at St. Louis. It was a major engineering feat, the largest bridge built at that time and the very first steel bridge. Completed in 1874, it is the oldest bridge standing on the Mississippi River. It was designed and built by James Buchanan Eads, an engineer famous for his ironclad gunboats built for the Union in the Civil War. Learn more about the Eads Bridge at the musuem under the Gateway Arch.