Railroad Bridge Postcard

The Union Pacific Missouri River Bridge is a rail truss bridge across the Missouri River connecting Council Bluffs, Iowa with Omaha, Nebraska. When the Union Pacific began heading west from Omaha in 1862 there were no railroads connecting to it from the east. After the Chicago and North Western Railway reached Council Bluffs in 1867, the Union Pacific for a while tried to run freight trains across the frozen river during the winter. When it first opened in 1872 the bridge connected the First Transcontinental Railroad to the eastern United States. This bridge quickly became obsolete as trains and locomotives increased in weight It has been rebuilt twice with the current bridge opening in 1916.