First Bismarck Railroad Bridge

Photos 

Photocopy From George S. Morison's The Bismark Bridge, 1883. North Web And East Portal Of Bridge

Photo taken by Historic American Engineering Record

View photos at Library of Congress

BH Photo #123080

Map 

Facts 

Overview

Lost through and deck truss bridge over the Missouri River carrying the Northern Pacific Railway in Bismarck

Location

Bismarck, Burleigh County, North Dakota, and Morton County, North Dakota

Status

Orginal Whipple truss spans replaced with through Warren truss spans, reusing the original piers

History

Built in 1882 under the direction of George Morison; superstructure replaced 1905

Builders

- Detroit Bridge & Iron Works of Detroit, Michigan
- George S. Morison of New Bedford, Massachusetts (Chief engineer)
- Rust & Coolidge of Chicago, Illinois

Railroad

- Northern Pacific Railroad (NP)

Design

Whipple through truss

Approximate latitude, longitude

+46.81789, -100.82699   (decimal degrees)
46°49'04" N, 100°49'37" W   (degrees°minutes'seconds")

Approximate UTM coordinates

14/360631/5186547 (zone/easting/northing)

Quadrangle map:

Bismarck

Inventory number

BH 37369 (Bridgehunter.com ID)

Categories 

Update Log 

• August 18, 2012: Updated by John Marvig: Added categories "Northern Pacific Railroad", "railroad"
• March 10, 2012: New photos from Craig Philpott
• September 7, 2008: Added by Kim Harvey

Related Bridges 

• BNSF - Missouri River High Bridge (Successor)

Sources 

• Kim Harvey
• HAER ND-2 - Bismarck Bridge, Spanning Missouri River, Bismarck, Burleigh County, ND
• Dept Mineral Resources ND newsletter - History and photos of bridge
• Craig Philpott - craigphilpott63 [at] gmail [dot] com
• The Bismarck Bridge : a report to A. Anderson, engineer in chief of the Nothern Pacific Railroad : Northern Pacific Railroad Company : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive - 44 p., 26 leaves of plates : 35 x 55 cm

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