The Rock Island Bridge in Kansas City, Kansas is a rail crossing of the Kansas River. It connects the Armourdale, Kansas to West Bottoms. It is a truss bridge that is closed to traffic.
It was built in 1905. It has two main spans and a smaller one on the east side. It also has a screw-jack lifting system to allow the bridge to be lifted during floods. It was used until 1972, when the Kansas City Stockyards closed down, the Kemper Arena was built right in the path of the tracks, and Rock Island abandoned the line to the bridge later that year. The bridge's rails were cut off at each end and a levee for the Kansas River was built at the east end. It no longer carries railroads, but carries electrical wires in a rack. It is located just north of Kansas Avenue over the Kansas River.
Famous quotes containing the words rock, island and/or bridge:
“I’m headed for a land that’s far away
Beside the crystal fountains.
So come with me, we’ll go and see
The Big Rock Candy Mountains.”
—Unknown. The Big Rock Candy Mountains (l. 5–8)
“If a man be gracious and courteous to strangers, it shows he is a citizen of the world, and that his heart is no island cut off from others lands, but a continent that joins to them.”
—Francis Bacon (1561–1626)
“Poetry is not only dream and vision; it is the skeleton architecture of our lives. It lays the foundations for a future of change, a bridge across our fears of what has never been before.”
—Audre Lorde (1934–1992)