1875 |
January: By a vote of 6 to 1, a board composed of Army and civilian engineers hands Eads a second victory over Humphreys, voting for the construction of jetties rather than a canal at the mouth of the Mississippi River.
April: The St. Louis Bridge goes bankrupt, and is transfered into the hands of receivers.
June 17: Construction of the jetties begins at the mouth of the Mississippi, at South Pass below 7New Orleans. The first piles are driven into the floor of the riverbed. |
1876 |
February: The eight-foot channel in the South Pass has been deepened to 13 feet.
Eads' gun carriage design is exhibited by the Naval Ordinance Bureau in the Government Building at the Centennial Exhibition of 1876, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
Scientific American magazine writes of Eads' "commanding talents and remarkable sagacity." The article describes him as a "man of genius, of industry, and of incorruptible honor," and calls on him to seek the presidency of the United States.
 May 2: The steamer "Grand Republic" makes a tour of Eads' jetties-in-progress, carrying potential investors and the press. An Army Corps engineer takes repeated soundings at South Pass in view of Eads' guests. The engineer then boards the "Grand Republic" at Port Eads and attempts to sabotage Eads' publicity efforts by claiming a new sandbar is forming 1,000 feet beyond the jetties.
May 12: The "Hudson," captained by E. V. Gager, a friend of Eads, steams full speed through the jetties, at the risk of grounding and destroying the ship, to prove they are deeper than Army engineers claim.
October 4: Eads officially achieves a 20-foot-deep channel in South Pass. Oceangoing ships begin using the still-unfinished channel routinely. |
1877 |
October 30: Eads' younger daughter Martha marries Edward Montague Switzer.
December: The channel at South Pass reaches 22 feet. A second payment is due to Eads. |
1879 |
May: A congress is called by the French diplomat Viscount Ferdinand de Lesseps to consider creating a passage from the Gulf of Mexico to the Pacific. Such a passage will speed travel times between the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans by eliminating the long, dangerous voyage around South America. De Lesseps proposes building a canal across Panama.
June 28: Congress creates the Mississippi River Commission, made up of Army and civilian engineers who will control the river.
June 30: Humphreys resigns as Chief Engineer of the Army Corps of Engineers.
July: U.S. Army Captain Micah Brown certifies that the South Pass channel has reached the final goal, a depth of 30 feet.
Fall and winter: Eads begins investigating the possibility of building a ship railway over the Tehuantepec isthmus in Mexico. |
1880 |
March 8: Viscount de Lesseps presents his plans for a canal in Panama before the Select Committee of the House of Representatives on Interoceanic Canals.
March 9 and 13: Eads appears before the Select Committee of the House of Representatives on Interoceanic Canals and advocates the construction of a ship railway in Mexico.
The year after Eads' jetties are finished, 453,681 tons of cargo are shipped from St. Louis via New Orleans to Europe. In 1875, the year Eads began work on jetties, 6,857 tons of goods were shipped on the same route; in only 5 years, the jetties have helped cargo shipments from New Orleans to grow by over 6500%.
November: Eads goes to Mexico and negotiates for a charter from the Mexican government to build the ship railway. |
1881 |
Winter: Eads proposes to Congress building the ship railway at his own expense and at his own risk, provided the government guarantees a dividend of 6% for 15 years after he has proven the railway's practicality. The Senate fails to take action on proposal.
April: Eads makes a second trip to Mexico City to meet with the new Mexican president and with engineers. |
1883 |
April 23: Work begins on clearing the way for the ship railroad.
December 27: Eads' frequent adversary, the former chief of the Army Corps of Engineers Andrew Atkinson Humphreys, dies. |
1884 |
July: Britain's Royal Society of the Arts awards Eads the Albert Medal for "services he had rendered to the art of engineering." He is the first American to be so honored.
Summer: Eads and his wife Eunice move to a new home at 40 West Fifty-third Street in New York City.
The ship railway bill is read in the Senate, and referred back to the Committee on Commerce. There it is debated for months, never reaching a congressional vote. |
1886 |
End of the year: Eads begins putting together a proposal to undertake the financing the seventy-five-million-dollar ship railway venture himself. |
1887 |
January: Eads lobbies on Capitol Hill for a new ship railway bill.
February 3: Eads sails with his wife Eunice and stepdaughter Adelaide to the Bahamas.
February: The Senate passes the ship railway bill. It never reaches a House vote: the speaker denies it the few minutes necessary for consideration.
March 8: James Buchanan Eads dies. |
1888 |
June: Several of Eads' former associates organize and eventually incorporate the new Atlantic and Pacific Ship-Railway Company. |
1894 |
September 1: Twenty thousand people gather for the opening of the new St. Louis Union Station, the world's largest railroad station at the time and physical proof of the impact of Eads' bridge on commerce in the region. |
1902 |
Congress authorizes the creation of a deeper, wider channel at Southwest Pass in Louisiana. The channel is completed seven years later. |
1914 |
August 14: A lock canal in Panama is opened to traffic. |
1920 |
James Buchanan Eads is elected to the Hall of Fame for Great Americans. |
1932 |
 Deans of American Colleges of Engineering name Eads one of the five greatest engineers of all time, ranking him alongside Leonardo da Vinci and Thomas Edison.
|
1974 |
July: The last train crosses the Eads Bridge, a hundred years after the bridge was opened. |
1992 |
The Eads Bridge is closed. The east approach is structurally deficient and needs replacing. Over the next three years the top deck is also removed. The plan is to replace it with a deck strong enough to support four lanes of modern traffic. |
1993 |
The rail deck of the Eads Bridge comes back into service, carrying Metrolink regional transit trains across the river. |
2001 |
Fall: Projected date for the reopening of the upper deck of the Eads Bridge to cars, buses and pedestrian traffic. |
