April 22, 1856 – The very first railroad bridge over the Mississippi River opens, and now, the people of eastern Iowa could travel non-stop – reaching New York City by rail in no more than forty-two hours!
In January 1856, the Mississippi & Missouri (M&M) Railroad rolled into Iowa City from Davenport, but it wasn’t until April when the final link of our railroad connection to the East was completed. The construction involved three sections—a bridge across a narrow portion of the Mississippi between the Illinois shore and Rock Island (the island not the city), a line of tracks across the island, and the long bridge between the island and the Iowa shore.
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