Rails Across the Verdigris River

Today, we take our corridors for transportation for granted.  We drive across railroad tracks and sometimes take a train ride as if railroads have always run across our country.  We rarely think about the blood, sweat and heartache that went into their construction.

In May of 1871 the Missouri, Kansas and Texas Railroad laid new railroad tracks south through Indian Territory.  Track grew at the rate of a new mile of track every day towards the Canadian River.    

The Verdigris and Arkansas Rivers were obstacles that stood in the way.  They were three and a half miles apart.  The Verdigris river crossing would be easier because it would only require a 500 foot long bridge.

The Katy tracks reached the north bank of the Verdigris River on August 27, 1871.  The plan for crossing the Verdigris called for a 200 foot long center span between two 150 foot sections. 

A lot of wooden scaffolding supported the girders.  This scaffolding was called "waste work" because it would be torn down after the girders were secured in place.

Suddenly, some of the supporting scaffolding collapsed under the added weight when one of the wrought iron girders had just been raised atop the waste work. The workers were finishing up for the day.  October 1, 1871, a Sunday, had been just another workday with workers crawling over the scaffolding and girders.  When the 200 foot center shifted, girders and men went crashing into the river below.

Two men were killed in the fall and another drowned.  They were William MacMahon, Joseph Decker and a man (whose first name is unknown) whose surname was O'Brien.  Eighteen more men were critically wounded, three of whom later died.

Only a week earlier, railroad company officers had inspected to workmanship and publicly bragged on the quality.

When the center span fell into the Verdigris both iron girders were damaged beyond use.    Fortunately, two 200 foot long girders had just arrived at the railhead.  They were originally destined for spanning the Arkansas River.

As soon as dawn broke through the night time darkness, workers returned to the Verdigris Bridge while a special freight train ferried eighteen injured workers to Sedalia and St. Louis in Missouri for treatment.

The railroad company ordered replacement girders from the American Bridge Company based in Chicago.  These were replacements for spanning the Arkansas River. 

Manufacture of new 200 foot long girders began immediately.  However, work building new girders came to a screeching halt the following Sunday when Chicago began burning in the "Great Chicago Fire."  The fire greatly disrupted the bridge company's construction schedule.

Only two weeks after the bridge collapsed into the Verdigris River, the workers were finished replacing the destroyed girders with a pair intended for use at the Arkansas River.  The bridge was completed across the Verdigris River by the end of October, 1871. 

The Katy railroad finally completed the first bridge across the Arkansas River and into the future city of Muskogee in December, 1871.   Muskogee's birth took place by the railroad tracks in 1872.