The Gasconade Bridge Disaster

A few miles east of Hermann, the Gasconade River empties into the Missouri. In the autumn of eighteen fifty five, a brand new railroad bridge spanned the Gasconade at that confluence, and it was considered one of the engineering achievements of the Pacific Railroad being built west from Saint Louis. On the first day of November, eighteen fifty five, a ceremonial excursion train carrying about six hundred passengers left Saint Louis for a grand debut run to Jefferson City, one hundred twenty five miles away.

Among the passengers were city officials, railroad directors, civic leaders, and prominent citizens, including a merchant named Thomas O'Flaherty, the father of the writer Kate Chopin. The bridge at Gasconade had not been fully finished. Temporary wooden trestle had been installed to carry the track across the river for the celebration run.

Heavy rains had been falling all day. As the locomotive crossed, the trestle collapsed. Cars plunged into the Gasconade River.

The confirmed death toll reached thirty one that afternoon and later rose above forty as injured passengers died of their wounds. It was the first major deadly railroad bridge collapse in American history. The disaster killed the Pacific Railroad's own chief engineer, Thomas O'Sullivan, among many others.

The city of Saint Louis shut down to accommodate the funerals. The wreck had a consequence beyond the immediate tragedy. Saint Louis had been positioning itself as the logical starting point for a transcontinental railroad to the Pacific.

The Gasconade disaster damaged that argument and shifted the momentum of the transcontinental debate toward Chicago, which eventually won. The bridge near this small river town altered the commercial geography of the entire continent.