Historic Homes and Businesses in Carver - Carver County Historical ...

the stone for the bridge being obtained by 10-15 teams from a Louisville Township
quarry in Scott County across the river from Carver.
In March 1871 a river barge was built and work began on driving pilings for the bridge
across the Minnesota River. In August 1871 the Minneapolis-St. Louis Railroad bridge
over the Minnesota River at Carver was estimated to be three weeks from completion.
Langdon & Co. was doing all the work, and by August 31 the south pier was finished, the
center pier was about half completed, and work on the north pier had just started. In
October 1871 T. B. Boomer still had a crew of 40 men working on the railroad bridge
crossing the Minnesota River at Carver.
In October 1871 the Carver merchants were having trouble keeping up with all the
business generated by some 500 workmen building the bridge and laying railroad track in
the area. Every hotel and private boarding house was filled to overflowing, with a
vacancy nowhere to be found. On November 4, 1871 a large group of people gathered to
see the swing gate of the new bridge swung into place. The swing gate could be
mechanically opened to allow steamboats and tall barges to pass under the bridge,
afterwhich it would be closed again for railroad traffic. The Minneapolis-St. Louis
Railroad at Carver had a pair wooden truss spans on each end of the bridge and its swing
span, made of wood, in the center. The swing span used a center pin design, and was built
as a single truss with a curved arch top. Later bridge swing spans were built as double
truss spans connecting at a pivot point. The swing span was opened and closed manually
with a crank mechanism. The crank required a gateman to be on duty for required
openings. As a young man John Elroy Hebeisen (1886-1973), who lived in the Gables at
201 4 th Street East in Carver, was the last gateman on the Minneapolis-St. Louis
Railway‟s old swing bridge over the Minnesota River.
In late October 1916, as the United States‟ entry into World War I was becoming more
imminent, officials from the U. S. War Department, looking at U. S. infrastructure, met
with the Minneapolis-St. Louis Railway to discuss the condition of the Minnesota River
crossing bridge at Carver. A few years earlier the bridge was deemed unsafe, and it was
decided that the swing bridge that once allowed steamboats to pass was no longer
necessary. Permission was granted to build a new flat bridge over the Minnesota River at
the existing location, tearing down the old wooden swing bridge. With the U. S.
officially entered into World War I, in September 1917 a crew of 75 men began tearing
down the old bridge, while saving some of the solid stone piers for use in the new bridge.
In November 1917 a $15,000 contract was let for the steel for the bridge. The new bridge
would continue to have trestle framing at the bridge ends.
From the beginning to the present pedestrians (often illegally) have walked the
Minneapolis-St. Louis Railroad to cross the Minnesota River. Sometimes it was to shop,
sometimes to fish, sometimes to hunt, sometimes for the view, sometimes to visit the fair
or a Carver saloon, and sometimes just to do it. Always there were risks that an
oncoming train would catch pedestrians too near the middle, or that a walker would trip
in an opening between the railroad ties, or lose balance and fall into the river. Special
emergency sidesteps were placed as escapes when trains passed, but the bridge was never
intended as a pedestrian byway.