ASB Bridge

The Armour–Swift–Burlington (ASB) Bridge — also called the North Kansas City Bridge, and earlier the Winner and Fratt bridges — is a 1911 double-deck telescoping vertical-lift steel-truss crossing of the Missouri River between downtown Kansas City, Missouri and North Kansas City.¹²³ Its name records the three interests that finally finished it: the Armour and Swift packing companies and the Chicago, Burlington & Quincy railroad (via the Union Depot, Bridge, and Terminal Railway Company).¹³⁴ The lower deck still carries BNSF freight; the upper vehicle deck was removed after the Heart of America Bridge (Missouri Route 9) opened in 1987, leaving a rail-only landmark documented by HAER and designated an ASCE National Historic Civil Engineering Landmark in 1996.²³⁵

Name origin and why the bridge was built

Congress authorized a Missouri River bridge at Kansas City in 1887. Stone masonry piers were completed in 1890 under an early high-level design associated with engineer J. A. L. Waddell, but funding collapsed and the unfinished work sat for years — variously tied to promoter Willard E. Winner (hence Winner Bridge) and later F. W. Fratt of the Union Depot, Bridge, and Terminal Railway (Fratt Bridge).¹⁴⁶

In 1903, Armour, Swift, and the Burlington acquired the site and piers; in 1907 Fratt retained the new firm Waddell & Harrington to redesign and complete the crossing.¹⁴ Construction of the present superstructure began about 1909. The bridge opened to traffic on 28 December 1911; HAER dates overall construction 1910–1912. Approximate total cost was $2.4 million (including remodeling of the 1890 piers).¹³

The same ASB syndicate underwrote the planned industrial town on the north bank. Burlington laid the rail network; the packers’ names (with Burlington’s) became the main streets — Armour Road, Swift Avenue, Burlington Street. North Kansas City was incorporated 4 November 1912, months after the bridge opened. Relative to the earlier Hannibal Bridge (1869), which locked Kansas City as a rail gateway on the south bank, the ASB was the dedicated dual-use link that made the north-bank company town viable.⁴⁷

Engineering — telescoping vertical lift

HAER’s significance statement is precise: the ASB is the only vertical-lift span of its type ever built in which the railroad portion telescopes into the truss of the vehicular roadway so riverboats can pass without interrupting highway traffic on the fixed upper deck.¹⁵ HistoricBridges.org and ASCE describe the same rare “telescoping” program; a related Waddell & Harrington double-deck lift (Portland, Oregon’s Steel Bridge) is sometimes counted as the second of the broader type.⁵⁶

River structure (three truss spans): main lift span 428 feet; two fixed spans about 428 and 426 feet; river-span total about 1,282 feet. Raised railroad clearance about 65 feet above standard high water; navigable channel about 412 feet between piers. Full bridge including approaches about 4,083 feet; Locust Street to 10th Street about 1.2 miles.¹³

The lower railroad deck hangs from hangers that rise into the upper truss posts when lifted. Duplicate hoisting machinery sits in houses on the upper chords at both ends of the lift span (125 hp motors originally); HAER notes an original raise time of about 50 seconds, lengthened by age to about three minutes by the early 1980s documentation. Nickel steel reduced movable dead load; four of the 1890 limestone piers were cut down and reused for the river spans.¹⁶

ASCE credits the finished bridge as Kansas City’s first structure with separate rights-of-way for pedestrians, wagons, electric railways, freight trains, and motor traffic, helping the city keep rail-hub status while opening North Kansas City to development.⁴

Dual-use history (1911–1987)

• Opening configuration — upper deck: two vehicle lanes (tolls for vehicles, pedestrians, and livestock); lower deck: railroad (built for two tracks; later operated as one).¹³
• January 1913 — electric interurban cars began using rails on the upper deck; streetcar tracks removed 1948 when the deck was rebuilt for four vehicle lanes.¹³
• 1915–1926 — upper deck part of the Jefferson Highway auto trail (secondary summaries; treat as pending a primary map or highway department schedule).³
• 2 May 1927 — south approach damaged by fire and replaced that month.¹³
• August 1927 — Missouri State Highway Department took over the upper deck; tolls removed. The bridge carried US 71 and later Missouri Route 9.¹³⁶
• Later state projects (HAER chronology): girder span over Second Street 1932; deck replacement 1948; pier collars 1949; painting 1950; north-approach widenings 1952 and 1966; deck repairs 1967; railroad-deck girder work 1981–1982.¹
• 1977 — state banned vehicles of six tons or more from outer upper-deck lanes over girder concerns (contemporary Kansas City Times coverage cited via Wikipedia).³

By 1981, HAER recorded about 32,080 vehicles per day on the upper deck and 25–30 freight trains daily below.¹

1951 flood and later high water

Wikipedia states the bridge “survived” the 1951 flood; HAER’s event list does not isolate a 1951 damage item but does document continuous postwar maintenance and a 1952 north-approach widening.¹³ A Missouri Department of Transportation photograph dated 14 July 1951 (Missouri Digital Heritage / MoDOT collection) shows inspectors on the railroad level with flood damage described as a washed-out rail deck — evidence that the structure endured the flood event with repairable harm rather than collapse.⁸ The span remained in dual service for decades afterward and still lifts for high water or barge needs on occasion (operations after the vehicle deck’s removal are rail-controlled).⁶⁸

Conversion to rail-only (1987–present)

Deterioration of the upper roadway drove a January 1980 agreement: Missouri would remove the highway and unneeded approaches, rehabilitate the three river spans for rail, and transfer ownership to Burlington Northern.¹ The replacement Heart of America Bridge (Route 9) opened immediately east in 1987; the ASB upper deck surface and long vehicle approaches were removed in 1988–1989, after which the structure has been rail-only under BN successor BNSF Railway.³⁵⁶

1996 — remaining structure designated an ASCE National Historic Civil Engineering Landmark for its rare telescoping dual-deck lift design.³⁴ HAER survey MO-2 (Missouri Highway and Transportation Department historian, May 1982; transmitted 1984) preserves 92 photographs and 17 data pages of the dual-deck configuration before demolition of the roadway.¹²

As of the mid-2020s the ASB remains an active Missouri River rail crossing, visible from Berkley Riverfront Park and the Heart of America Bridge pedestrian path; KCUR’s river-bridge photo essay notes it among Kansas City’s signature spans and as among the longer U.S. vertical-lift drawbridges by main-span length.⁷⁹

See also

• north-kansas-city
• hannibal-bridge
• 1951-flood
• river-market
• missouri-river
• The KS.City Wiki

Sources

Footnotes

1. Historic American Engineering Record — “Armour, Swift, Burlington Bridge (A.S.B.) (Fratt Bridge; North Kansas City Bridge; Winner Bridge),” HAER No. MO-2, Missouri Highway and Transportation Department historian, May 1982; Jean P. Yearby, transmitter, 1984. Catalog · Data PDF: tile.loc.gov — asserts: location Locust Street (KCMO / Jackson) to Burlington Avenue (NKC / Clay); dates piers 1890, bridge 1910–1912; significance as only telescoping rail-into-highway-truss vertical lift of its type; Winner / Fratt / Armour–Swift–Burlington ownership chain; Waddell & Harrington redesign 1907; open 28 December 1911 with tolls; interurban January 1913; state takeover and tolls off August 1927; fire 2 May 1927; alteration chronology through 1981–82; 1980 MoHTC–BN agreement to strip highway and transfer rail spans; river spans 428 / 428 / 426 ft, 1,282 ft river total, ~4,083 ft overall, 1.2 mi approaches; 65 ft raised clearance, 412 ft channel; machinery and nickel-steel lift deck; ~$2.4M cost; McClintic-Marshall and James O’Connor & Son; ~32,080 vpd / 25–30 trains daily in 1981; NRHP-eligible determination for mitigation. ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵ ↩⁶ ↩⁷ ↩⁸ ↩⁹ ↩¹⁰ ↩¹¹ ↩¹² ↩¹³ ↩¹⁴ ↩¹⁵ ↩¹⁶ ↩¹⁷

2. Library of Congress Prints & Photographs — HAER item mo0450 summary record — asserts: 92 photos, 17 data pages, 6 caption pages; survey HAER MO-2; related names Waddell, Harrington, Winner, Fratt, Union Depot Bridge & Terminal Railway, McClintic-Marshall, Missouri Highway & Transportation Department, Burlington Northern; significance line matching the telescoping lift uniqueness claim; lat/long 39.116527, −94.57974. ↩ ↩² ↩³

3. Wikipedia — “ASB Bridge.” — asserts: Armour–Swift–Burlington / North Kansas City / LRC names; vertical-lift double-deck truss; BNSF lower deck; former MO Route 9 upper deck designed to lift rail without blocking cars; 1,282 ft length / 428 ft main span; designer Waddell & Harrington; opened 1911 (28 December traffic open); piers 1890; Armour, Swift, CB&Q funding; interurban 1913–1948; Jefferson Highway 1915–1926; state takeover August 1927; 1951 flood survival claim; 1977 outer-lane weight ban (citing Kansas City Times 25 June 1981); Heart of America Bridge 1987 replacement; upper deck removed / BN ownership 1988–1989; ASCE landmark 1996; HAER MO-2 external link. Cross-check engineering and ownership chronology against ¹⁴⁵. ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵ ↩⁶ ↩⁷ ↩⁸ ↩⁹ ↩¹⁰ ↩¹¹ ↩¹² ↩¹³ ↩¹⁴

4. American Society of Civil Engineers — Historic Landmark: “Armour-Swift-Burlington Bridge,” Kansas City, MO, completion 1911 — asserts: unique telescoping vertical-lift steel-truss by J. A. L. Waddell; Winner Bridge work from 1887, piers 1890, suspended for finance; Waddell alternate lift design 1895 later realized as ASB; riveted steel innovations; first KC bridge with separate rights-of-way for pedestrians, wagons, electric railways, freight trains, and motor traffic; maintained railroad-hub role and opened North Kansas City to development; coordinates ~39°07′00″N 94°34′47.5″W; cites Ernest E. Howard, “Vertical Lift Bridges,” Transactions ASCE Vol. LXXXIV (1921) and Katherine Goldsmith on Winner. ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵ ↩⁶ ↩⁷

5. HistoricBridges.org — “ASB Bridge (Fratt Bridge - Armour-Swift-Burlington Bridge).” — asserts: first example of unique telescoping vertical-lift double-deck design; upper highway deck high enough for boats; lower railroad deck lifts inside main-truss verticals without moving the highway deck; related Portland Steel Bridge as second application of the patented idea; major integrity loss when highway deck and long upper approaches removed after Heart of America Bridge; builder McClintic-Marshall; engineer Waddell and Harrington; built 1911. ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵

6. John Marvig Railroad Bridge Photography — “Armour-Swift-Burlington (ASB) Bridge.” — asserts: telescoping lift over Missouri River KCMO–NKC; built by Union Depot Bridge & Terminal Railway; engineer Waddell & Harrington; contractor McClintic-Marshall; current owner BNSF; length ~1,475 ft total with 428 ft main span (author measurement differs slightly from HAER river-span total); piers 1890, superstructure 1911; Winner / Fratt name history; highway decks removed 1987; CB&Q successor BNSF traffic; Baltimore through truss + deck girder; national significance ranking with integrity loss after 1987 alteration. ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵ ↩⁶

7. Julie Denesha — “PHOTOS: Kansas City’s Bridges Tell A Story Of Creation And Destruction,” KCUR, 25 June 2015 — asserts: ASB visible from Berkley Riverfront pathway; counterweights / vertical lift for rail and river traffic; opened 1911; among longer U.S. vertical-lift drawbridges; Heart of America Bridge as adjacent Route 9 crossing; Hannibal Bridge context as first permanent Missouri River rail bridge (1869) and Second Hannibal (1917) still in rail use. ↩ ↩²

8. Industrial Scenery (Dennis DeBruler) — “1911 Armour Swift Burlington (ASB) Bridge over Missouri River in Kansas City, MO,” 2 September 2018 — asserts: dual-deck history; roadway removed after Heart of America Bridge; telescoping hangers; ASCE landmark status; reproduces MoDOT image modot_293A_004, 14 July 1951, Missouri Digital Heritage Disasters / Floods / 1951 collection, captioned as men examining flood damage on the washed-out railroad level of the ASB Bridge (Clay County). MoDOT / MDH item path referenced: cdm16795.contentdm.oclc.org — use for 1951 flood survival-with-damage; prefer MoDOT primary if re-fetched. ↩ ↩²

9. Port KC — “ASB Underpass” project brief — asserts: active Armour–Swift–Burlington bridge as a barrier that formerly bifurcated the Riverfront Heritage Trail between River Market and riverfront paths (context for modern pedestrian access under/around the south approach). Secondary to engineering sources ¹⁵ for structure facts. ↩