He thus made clear his remarkable plans for the bridge; for in 1867 the long talked of bridge at Saint Louis was at last begun.
In 1833, when Eads had arrived at the town, it had about 10,000 inhabitants. Though already seventy years old, it had not advanced very far beyond its original state of a French trading-post. With the introduction of steam and the waking up of the country, the growth of Saint Louis was rapid. In 1867 it had about 100,000 people. Despite a commanding situation, it could be seen that a struggle would have to be made for it to maintain the leadership among the river towns. As early as 1839 there had been a project for a highway bridge; and we are told that "the city fathers stood aghast" at an estimated cost of $736,600. In the following years there were several more abortive schemes for bridging, one of which, it is even said, would have been carried out, had not its projector died. Perhaps it is as well that he never lived to try it, for until Eads no one seems to have realized how enormous the undertaking was. Probably few others, realizing it, would have dared to go on.
In the winter of 1865-66 a bill was brought up in Congress to authorize the bridging of the Mississippi at Saint Louis. Dependence on ferries had become intolerable to the people, and often when the river was frozen even the ferries were blocked. A bridge was felt to be absolutely indispensable. However, the antagonism of rival commercial routes was so powerful that the bill was allowed to pass only after it had been so amended that it was supposed to require an impracticability. It declared that the central span of the contemplated bridge must be no less than 500 feet long, nor its elevation above the city directrix less than fifty feet. It was said at the time "that the genius did not exist in the country capable of erecting such a structure."
Still, a span of over 500 feet had been built in Holland; and the fact that there was not a total doubt as to the practicability of doing as well in the Mississippi Valley is shown by the inauguration of two rival bridge companies about a year after the passage of the bill. One of these, which was located in Illinois, after calling a convention of engineers, who considered the question for ten days, without an examination of Eads's plans, adopted a plan for a truss bridge. The other, the Saint Louis company, from the first had Eads as its chief engineer. For another year there was a sharp contest carried on between these two companies, confined, however, principally to the courts and the newspapers, until finally the Illinois company sold out to the Saint Louis company. Had the truss bridge been built, there is no knowing how long it might have stood, for the engineer who designed it did not arrange to base the foundations on the bed-rock of the river. Afterwards it was shown how necessary it was to do this; but at the time many people thought it quite superfluous, and on that, as well as on many other points, Eads met with opposition.