Kinzie Street railroad bridge

and Kinzie Street railroad bridge. Among the buildings and structures shown are (left to right) Left Bank at K Station (300 North Canal), 333 North Canal, Kinzie Street railroad bridge, 350 North Orleans, Merchandise Mart, 300 North LaSalle, Franklin Street Bridge and part of 333 Wacker Drive. The Kinzie Street railroad bridge runs in an east–west orientation, spanning the north branch Chicago River between the Near North Side and Near West Side community areas of Chicago. To the south is the historic area of Wolf Point at the confluence of the main stem of the Chicago River with the north and south branches, and to the east is 350 West Mart Center and Merchandise Mart. The railroad track across the bridge is a spur line of the Union Pacific Railroad, that branches off from the route of the Union Pacific North Line about northwest of the bridge. The railroad to the east of the bridge has no customers since 2000. ==Previous bridges==

Through the 1820s a small settlement grew around Wolf Point, at the forks of the Chicago River. In June 1829, Samuel Miller—who owned a tavern on the north shore of the river beside the forks—and Archibald Clybourne were authorized to run a ferry across the mouth of the north branch of the river, just south of the present Kinzie Street. By 1832 the ferry had been replaced with a pedestrian bridge that was the first bridge to be constructed across the Chicago River. viewed from the east as it appeared in 1893. The 1879–1898 swing bridge is visible in the top right of the drawing. On October 10, 1848, the Galena and Chicago Union Railroad—Chicago's first railroad—began operating out of a depot on the west side of the Chicago River, near the corner of Canal and Kinzie Streets. Though the City of Chicago had authorized the railroad to construct a bridge across the north branch of the river as early as July 17, 1848, it was not until 1851 that the railroad began to purchase the land needed to build the Wells Street Station to the east of the river. In order to access the new station a floating pontoon bridge designed by Jenks D. Perkins was built across the north branch at roughly the same location as the earlier pedestrian bridge. This bridge—the first railroad bridge in Chicago—was completed in 1852, allowing trains to access the railroad's new Wells Street Station and subsequently industry on the north bank of the Chicago River as far as the Ogden Slip and Navy Pier. The original railroad bridge was replaced by a swing bridge in 1879 that, along with the Glasgow Railroad Bridge across the Missouri River, was one of the United States' first all-steel railroad bridges. This bridge was constructed from Bessemer steel, which proved too brittle and so the bridge was replaced again in 1898. ==Bascule bridge==

River traffic and railroad traffic were increasingly in competition with each other. In October 1879 a disaster was narrowly avoided when a seven-coach passenger train with 800 people on board approached the open swing bridge too fast and was barely able to stop in time, ending up with its front wheels hanging off the approach road over the river. Meanwhile, boats on the river were getting larger and finding it increasingly difficult to navigate the bridges at the mouth of the north branch, so the Army Corps of Engineers ordered the clearing of three swing bridges near Kinzie Street that were obstructing river traffic. The substructure of the bridge was constructed by the Great Lakes Dredge and Dock Company. Usage The Chicago and North Western Railway originally planned for two bridges side-by-side that could carry four railroad tracks into the Wells Street Station. Abandonment During the second half of the 20th century the number of companies using the railroad for shipping on Chicago's near north side declined severely. In the 1970s customers at the east end of the line included the Curtiss candy factory and the Jardine Water Purification Plant. The newspaper moved their printing plant out of downtown Chicago in early 2001 leaving no traffic across the bridge and it has since been permanently raised in the open position. On December 12, 2007, the bridge was one of 12 historic Chicago railroad bridges to be designated as Chicago Landmarks. Proposals for reuse Tests were conducted in 1953 to see if the spur could be used as a part of a commuter line with stops at Merchandise Mart, State Street, and Michigan Avenue, but the plan was dropped in 1954 for financial reasons. ==See also==