9/1/2010:
It was this date in 1881 that the Northern Pacific Railroad began major operations on the first million dollar project in North Dakota history. And that was when a million dollars could actually buy you something.
Throughout much of the 1870s and 1880s, the Northern Pacific worked doggedly to join the Great Lakes seaports with the Pacific Ocean via a northern route. By June of 1873, the company had reached as far as Edwinton, Dakota Territory, which is now Bismarck. Yet just as the company started to make plans to cross the river, the financial panic of 1873 undermined the railroad's access to funds and forced the Northern Pacific into bankruptcy. The company continued to operate trains on its existing tracks, but all major construction came to a halt. In 1878 Northern Pacific reorganized and once again started construction, laying track west from Mandan. By December of 1880, track had reached Glendive, Montana Territory.
While trains could operate the hundreds of miles of track laid out on both sides of the Missouri River, there remained no bridge to connect the two stretches. The company was forced to either ferry rail cars across the river or send them across a three mile long make-shift track laid out on the ice each winter. Both methods were expensive and necessitated enormous effort.
The Northern Pacific knew it needed a permanent solution and began looking at both bridges and tunnels to cross the Missouri near Bismarck. In 1880, the company hired George Morison, a lawyer turned civil engineer, to assist in the operation. Morison quickly decided against a tunnel, favoring a bridge adjacent the nearby cliffs, which would make anchoring the bridge easier. A system of dikes, to narrow the river and ease construction was started in September, with construction of the actual bridge beginning the next year. By June of 1882, the bridge's four piers were completed and within only five months the nearly half mile long bridge was finished. It was given a final test on October 18, 1882, and began operation to great local fanfare and excitement.
All-and-all, the Northern Pacific bridge in present-day Bismarck cost just over $1,000,000 and was one of the first in the world to be constructed entirely of steel. Not only was the bridge of seminal importance to the Territory of Dakota and the Northern Pacific Railroad, it served to cement the reputation of the bridge's engineer, George Morison. Morison's later work on some of the largest bridges in the country and his highly influential consulting work on the Panama Cannel established him as one of the premier civil engineers of the late nineteenth century. Yet in North Dakota, George Morison will always be remembered for his mighty bridge straddling the Missouri and completing North Dakota's first million dollar project.
Dakota Datebook written by Lane Sunwall
Sources
Eriksmoen, Curt. Did You Know That...?: 47 Fascinating Stories About People Who Have Lived in North Dakota. Vol. Volume 2: McCleery & Sons Publishing, 2008.
"George S. Morison Dead." New York Times July 3, 1903.
Kingsbury, George W. History of Dakota Territory. Vol. Volume 1. Chicago: S. J. Clarke Publishing Company, 1915.