The MacArthur Bridge, looking east from St. Louis, in June 1942. A passenger train rolls down from the bridge toward Union Station. To the right, cars and trucks use the street deck, which connected Seventh Street near Chouteau Avenue in St. Louis to 10th Street near Piggott Avenue in East St. Louis. After the Poplar Street Bridge opened in 1967, few motorists used the MacArthur. The city closed the street deck in 1981. Post-Dispatch file photo
The St. Louis Municipal Bridge as it stood across the Mississippi River in 1912 after money ran out from the original $3.5 million bond issue, which was adopted by St. Louis voters in 1906. Additional bond issues were needed to complete the land approaches for the street deck in 1917. It took much longer to fully link the rail deck to the main lines in East St. Louis. The Municipal was the people's bridge — the product of a populist movement to get around the railroad monopoly controlling the Eads and Merchants bridges. In 1906, they were the only two spanning the Mississippi River at St. Louis. The railroads didn't regularly use the Municipal until 1940. The city renamed it after Gen. Douglas MacArthur in March 1942, three months after America entered World War II. Post-Dispatch file photo
Crowds gather near the East St. Louis ramp onto the Municipal Bridge to await opening ceremonies on Jan. 20, 1917. Post-Dispatch file photo
St. Louis Mayor Henry Kiel prepares to open an oversized ceremonial padlock on Jan. 20, 1917, to open the street deck of the Municipal Bridge, nicknamed the Free Bridge. Thousands of people paraded across it. The first public vote to build it had been approved overwhelmingly in St. Louis in 1906. Post-Dispatch file photo
Work finally begins in 1931 on the railroad approach from the Municipal Bridge to the main lines in East St. Louis. City voters had approved building the bridge in 1906 as a way around the railroads' control of the Eads and Merchants bridges, the only other local spans across the Mississippi at the time. But the railroads stuck to their own bridges. It took years of supplemental bond issues and legal tussling before the railroads commenced regular use in 1940 — 23 years after cars and trucks began crossing it. Post-Dispatch file photo
Traffic onto the Illinois approach to the Municipal Bridge from 10th Street in East St. Louis in 1935, with work underway to widen the intersection. The two-lane street deck on the bridge was opened in 1917. Post-Dispatch file photo
Winter fog and coal smoke shroud the Municipal Bridge in 1938. Post-Dispatch file photo
St. Louis Mayor Bernard Dickmann (center, holding ribbon) leads the dedication of the Municipal Bridge railroad deck on Jan. 15, 1940, the first day of regular railroad service on the 23-year-old bridge. Behind him is the locomotive of the Pennsylvania Railroad's "Spirit of St. Louis" passenger train, which ran to New York City. Moments after the train headed east, its westbound sister train crossed the bridge to Union Station. In 1989, the Terminal Railroad Association took control of the Municipal, by then renamed MacArthur, in a swap that gave St. Louis the Eads Bridge for use by Metrolink. Railroads still give the MacArthur heavy use. Post-Dispatch file photo
The Pennsylvania Railroad's "Spirit of St. Louis" steams through the ribbon to commence regular rail service over the Municipal Bridge on Jan. 20, 1940. Post-Dispatch file photo
A Post-Dispatch photo marked to show the plunge of a car from the East St. Louis approach of the MacArthur Bridge in December 1950. One person died and three were seriously injured in the accident. Accidents of that sort, often fatal, occurred with some frequency from the high, narrow approach in East St. Louis. The photo caption noted that eight people had died in similar accidents in the previous eight years. Post-Dispatch file photo
John G. Murphy collects tolls on the MacArthur Bridge in June 1957. St. Louis voters approved building it as a "free bridge," but the city imposed tolls in 1932 to raise money for unemployment relief. It eliminated tolls in 1973 because, after the Poplar Street Bridge opened, traffic on the MacArthur didn't even raise enough to pay the toll-gate crew. Photo by Buel White of the Post-Dispatch
A snowstorm in March 1960 clogs traffic on the two-lane street deck of the MacArthur Bridge. Post-Dispatch file photo
St. Louis Mayor Rolla Wells in 1907. Wells, the son of a banker and streetcar magnate, was elected in 1901. A patrician in his views about government, Wells fervently opposed the populist movement that created the Municipal Bridge. He left office in 1909 after serving two full terms. In 1914, became the first governor of the St. Louis Federal Reserve. Post-Dispatch file photo
Rolla Wells in 1928. In his memoirs, published five years later, he continued to denounce the Municipal Bridge as "a costly folly." Wells died in 1944 at age 88. Post-Dispatch file photo
Leo Rassieur at a Central High School reunion in 1928, one year before his death at age 85. He graduated in 1860 from the St. Louis High School (later called Central), the city's first public high, and joined the Union army when the Civil War began. Post-Dispatch file photo
Leo Rassieur as a young Union soldier during the Civil War. Born in Germany in 1844, he was 17 when he joined the army. He finished the war as a major. Afterward, he taught school in St. Louis, practiced law and became city probate judge in 1885. In 1900-01, he was national chairman of the Grand Army of the Republic, the main organization of Civil War veterans. Rassieur was a leading proponent of the Municipal Bridge bond issue in 1906. Image courtesy Missouri History Museum
ST. LOUIS • “The Boston Tea Party was not more significant than this movement for a free bridge.”
If former judge Leo Rassieur’s rhetoric at a public rally was overdone, it fairly expressed widespread frustration in St. Louis over the local bridge monopoly at the turn of the 20th century. An association of railroad barons owned the only two bridges over the Mississippi River and charged high rates for the privilege of crossing them.
The citizen response stands today in dingy but sturdy stone and steel — a monument to populism called the MacArthur Bridge, just south of the Poplar Street Bridge.
Spanning the river had been a local obsession since before the Civil War. Completion of the Eads Bridge in 1874 was a regional triumph. Keeping it under local control was, in its own way, a greater challenge.
Local stockholders of the bridge defaulted to New York financiers and railroad kings. St. Louisans tried again, this time building the railroad-only Merchants Bridge 2.5 miles north of the Eads.
That bridge opened in 1890, but its investors were forced out by a recession three years later. The Merchants was snapped up by the Terminal Railroad Association, a combine of major railroads serving St. Louis that already controlled the Eads and the Wiggins Ferry Co. on the riverfront.
The TRRA system of tolls befitted a monopoly, with a worthy name — the “bridge arbitrary.” Working-class people resented the extra levy on Illinois coal. Businessmen resented the high freight rates.
They began pressing for a new “free” bridge. The TRRA, hoping to head off populist anger, cut rates by one-third — a move that only showed how much everyone had been fleeced. A Post-Dispatch editorial urged: “Smash the Bridge Combine.”
On June 12, 1906, voters rolled up an 8-to-1 ratio for a $3.5 million bond issue to build a Municipal Bridge, or Free Bridge, for trains and vehicles.
The most prominent opponent was Mayor Rolla Wells, a patrician industrialist. Even as the vote was announced, Wells said, “I have not yet seen an intelligent argument offered in favor of the free bridge.”
One year later, he vetoed a bill by the Municipal Assembly (forerunner of the Board of Aldermen) to locate the new bridge at the foot of Chouteau Avenue. The Assembly quickly overrode him.
“I take pleasure to pass this bill over the little rat’s head,” Asssemblyman Francis X. Hussey said.
Work began on the piers in 1909, but the project ran out of money before land approaches could be built. Voters added another $2.7 million bond issue in 1914. The street deck of the Municipal Bridge was opened to parades on Jan. 20, 1917.
But the railroads snubbed it. The city eventually charged vehicle tolls on the “free bridge.”
A few freight shuttles began in 1929, but finishing the railroad approaches required yet another bond issue and lengthy tussling between the city and TRRA. Finally, on Jan. 15, 1940, the Pennsylvania Railroad’s “Spirit of St. Louis” passenger train crossed the bridge after a ribbon-cutting ceremony, commencing regular use.
In March 1942, in the early days of World War II, the city renamed its bridge in honor of Gen. Douglas MacArthur. After the Poplar Street Bridge opened in 1967, few motorists used the MacArthur. The city closed its street deck in 1981.
In fine irony, the TRRA and St. Louis swapped their bridges in 1989 to run MetroLink across the Eads. Railroads put the old people’s bridge to heavy use.
Two leaders at opposite ends of the bridge fight
Leo Rassieur was a 17-year-old Union recruit who took part in the first bloody day of the Civil War in St. Louis. Rolla Wells was a young boy who watched the violence from his grandfather's carriage.
Forty-five years later, they were on opposing sides in the debate over a free bridge in St. Louis. Their stories help to portray St. Louis' class and economic tensions.
Rassieur was born in Germany in 1844 and moved here with his parents in 1849. He graduated from the city's first public high school (later called Central High) and joined the Union army with the outbreak of Civil War.
On May 10, 1861, he was one of Union Capt. Nathaniel Lyon's soldiers who captured the Southern-leaning Missouri militia near Olive Street and Compton Avenue. The surrender was peaceful, but 35 civilians and soldiers died in a clash between the green troops and pro-Southern (and anti-German) rioters.
Wells, then five, watched from Garrison Avenue, near the center of the battle. Rassieur ended the war as a major. He became a teacher, lawyer and city probate judge. In 1900, he was elected national chairman of the Grand Army of the Republic, the main organization of Union Civil War veterans.
Wells' father, Erastus Wells, was a bank president, streetcar-company owner and founder of the suburb of Wellston. Rolla Wells went to Princeton University, became president of a local steel foundry and, in 1901, was the pro-business candidate for mayor.
In office, he strongly opposed the public clamor to build a new bridge. Wells, a major investor in railroads, believed the captains of commerce knew best. He called the idea dangerous folly.
Rassieur campaigned passionately for the bridge and against monopoly power. He died in 1929 at age 85 in his home at 2335 Whittemore Place, near Lafayette Park.
Wells served two terms as mayor (1901-09) and was the first governor of the St. Louis Federal Reserve Bank. In his memoirs in 1933, he again denounced the free-bridge movement. He died in 1944 at age 88 in his home at 25 Westmoreland Place.
Both men were buried in Bellefontaine Cemetery.
Tim O'Neil
Tim O'Neil is a reporter for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch
