By Michael Bushnell
Northeast News
August 19, 2015

This Fred Harvey postcard shows a scene near the Municipal Wharf at First and Main Streets. Two steamboats are docking. One of them is the steamer Chester. The Chester was a regular packet that traveled between St. Louis and Kansas City. The Chester was owned by the Kansas City Transportation and Steamship Company.

In 1908, the fare to St. Louis was lowered from $7.50 to $5 to attract more passengers to the line. The fare included a stateroom and meals. The round-trip rate for a first-class stateroom and meals was $15.

According to newspaper accounts of the day, “a night on the river is cooler than on the shore, and as the staterooms are well screened, passengers are not troubled by mosquitoes.”

The Chester could hold between 75 and 100 passengers.

On more than one occasion, the Chester was used to promote tourism from Kansas City to other Missouri River towns such as Lexington, Booneville, Jefferson City, Hermann and St. Charles.

In the background is the Armour, Swift and Burlington Bridge. The ASB as it came to be known was completed in 1912 as a major rail link across the Missouri to points north. The ASB Bridge is the only one of its kind ever constructed anywhere else worldwide. The vertical lift span carries the lower railroad deck and allows the hangers from the lower deck to be contracted into the truss members of the upper deck, so auto traffic to continues on top, even when the lower lever is raised for river traffic.

The large plaque on the south end of the bridge reads:

1910-1911

Missouri River Bridge

Built by Union Depot Bridge & Terminal R.R. Co.

F.W. Fratt President

—

Waddell & Harrington

Consulting Engineers

Kansas City, Mo.

—

Contractors for Superstructure and Erection:

McClintic Marshall Construction Co.

Contractors for Piles:

American Concrete Co.

Contractors for

Substructure:

James O’Connor & Son