The City of St. Charles, earlier this week, approved a contract with Transystems for engineering consultant work on the 1904 Cable Piano Factory Bridge that crosses the Fox River at Indiana Street (see video above walking east on the bridge). The contract of just under $400,000 will be conducted in two phases, according to engineer Chris Gottlieb, the city’s engineer, and provide the city with four options moving forward: do nothing, repair and restore, partial rehabilitation, or bridge replacement. Two council members, Ron Silkaitis of Ward 1 and David Pietryla of Ward 4, expressed their strong desire to repair or rehabilitate the bridge.
BRIDGE ASSESSMENT AND DESIGN
Phase one of the contract will involve a detailed engineering assessment. While the bridge is inspected annually by the city’s Public Works department, the last full assessment was completed in 2015. The findings nearly ten years ago were that the bridge was in poor condition, did not meet modern load standards, and was much narrower than modern pedestrian bridge standards.[1]
Phase two of the contract would be the design phase in which Transystems would create several design options and cost estimates for each. These potential designs would be presented to the city council for review and discussion. Transystems expects these two phases to take 18 to 24 months to complete.[2] Gottlieb noted in his presentation on the contract that this work would be about 15% of the total cost for the bridge’s rehabilitation, if the city decided to pursue that option. Transystems has extensive experience rehabilitating historic bridges including the 92nd Street Bascule Bridge in Chicago, Eads Bridge in St. Louis, and the Peevy Road Bridge in rural Montgomery County, PA.
HISTORY OF THE 1904 CABLE PIANO FACTORY BRIDGE
Cable Piano Factory Bridge (foreground) and Cable Piano Factory (background) circa 1920 courtesy of the St. Charles History Museum.
While not currently a designated historic landmark by the city, state, or federal governments, the 1904 Cable Piano Factory Bridge is undoubtedly historic. Workers for the Cable Piano Factory, built in 1901 on the west bank of the Fox River between Indiana Street and Prairie Street, petitioned City Council in 1903 to build a pedestrian bridge linking the east and west sides of the river at Indiana Street.[3] At the time, the only bridge in St. Charles over the Fox River was the Main Street bridge necessitating a lengthy walk to work at the piano factory for those living on the east side of the river. The bridge the city built for the workers, many of whom were women, was a Pratt Truss bridge of riveted wrought iron constructed of 3 approximately 90-foot spans for a total of 270 feet on 4 concrete piers. Casting marks of “Phoenix” are on some of its structural members which indicate bridge was designed and built by the Phoenix Bridge Company, a historically significant American bridge builder.
CHALLENGES AHEAD
Funding, as is often the case, will be the greatest hurdle to rehabilitating and preserving this significant bridge in St. Charles. In a conversation after the meeting, Gottlieb explained that the current width of the bridge at seven feet is too narrow for modern pedestrian/bike trails which are ten feet. A plethora of grants exist for building and maintaining pedestrian and bike paths, but the bridge would have to be widened to ten feet for the Cable Piano Factory Bridge to qualify. The entire truss system would have to be modified to accomplish this, a likely expensive and ahistoric modification. Other creative solutions, however, may exist.
Grants from the National Park Service such as the Underrepresented Communities Grant (which the bridge could qualify for as representing labor, an underrepresented community in historic structures), History of Equal Rights (many women worked at the piano factory), or Save America’s Treasures (the bridge is the only remaining structure connected to the Cable Piano Factory which sold its pianos worldwide) may be funding sources for which the city can apply.
LANDMARK
Perhaps the most successful strategy for the bridge’s rehabilitation may be to make it an official local landmark. As noted above, the bridge would very likely qualify. While some alderpersons seemed to support the bridge’s rehabilitation, that could change when the cost estimates come in. Raising awareness of the bridge’s historic significance, which a landmark application would do, could create the incentive for the city to find the funding necessary to rehabilitate the bridge.
If you would like to assist in the effort to landmark the bridge, please add your name to support the landmark here. If you have a story about the bridge which you wish to share, please submit it here.
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[1] David Petesch, “St. Charles Making Plans for Indiana Street Pedestrian Bridge,” Kane County Chronicle, August 25, 2024, https://www.shawlocal.com/kane-county-chronicle/2024/08/25/st-charles-making-plans-for-indiana-street-pedestrian-bridge/.
[2] Transystems, “Design Engineeering Services: Indiana Avenue Pedestrian Bridge (Piano Factory Bridge),” August 1, 2024, 3-7, https://www.stcharlesil.gov/sites/default/files/event/packet-items/08.26.24%20GSC%20-%205.C.pdf.
[3] “City Council Proceedings,” St. Charles City Council Meeting Minutes, September 14, 1903, 556, archives of the City of St. Charles, Illinois, St. Charles, Ill.