The 1857 Rock Island Bridge Case: Lincoln, River Boats, and the Triumph of Railroads

In the summer of 1856, the steamboat Effie Afton smashed into the Rock Island Bridge, the first railroad bridge to span the Mississippi River, connecting Rock Island, Illinois, to Davenport, Iowa. The collision set the boat ablaze, damaged the bridge, and ignited one of the most consequential lawsuits of the 19th century: Hurd v. Rock Island Railroad Co. (often called the Effie Afton case).

The plaintiff, the steamboat’s owner, argued that the bridge itself was a public nuisance and an illegal obstruction of a navigable waterway. Behind him stood the powerful St. Louis river lobby—steamboat companies, shippers, and merchants—who feared that railroad bridges would choke off the Mississippi’s commercial lifeblood. If one bridge was allowed to stand, dozens more would follow, ending the golden age of river transport.

The Rock Island Railroad hired a relatively unknown 47-year-old Springfield lawyer, Abraham Lincoln, as co-counsel. Lincoln had no formal legal brief on interstate commerce or admiralty law, but he understood something deeper: the railroad was not merely a competitor to the steamboat; it would be its successor.

At trial in Chicago in September 1857, Lincoln dismantled the steamboat interests with plainspoken brilliance. He argued that the Mississippi belonged to the nation, not to any single mode of travel. Rivers had a right to be kept open, but so did the people’s right to cross them. Using maps, models, and a clever demonstration with sticks and string to show wind and current patterns, he proved the Effie Afton had struck the pier because of poor piloting, not the bridge’s design.

More importantly, Lincoln looked forward. In his closing, he declared that “one man’s rights end where another man’s begin,” and that the same public necessity that once justified steamboats now demanded railroads. Bridges were not obstructions; they were the next chapter of American progress.

The jury deadlocked, which legally upheld the bridge. Within months, railroad bridges sprouted across the Mississippi. The steamboat era began its long decline, and the transcontinental railroad network became inevitable. Lincoln’s fee was $500, modest by any standard, but the case cemented his reputation as a lawyer who could see the future. Two years later, when he ran for president, the phrase “a railroad lawyer from Illinois” was meant as a slur by river-state Democrats. History rendered a different verdict: in defending that single bridge, Lincoln helped bind a continent together.

I bring up this story because it seems emblematic of many conflicts throughout our history. Horse and buggy enterprises ultimately yielded to the automobile. Ice harvesters were eliminated with the advent of refrigerators. Typesetters were no longer needed with the advent of desktop publishing. The internet has crippled newspapers. Streaming media has wounded the theater industry.

Can we hold back the future? Should we? Across the country today there is opposition to data centers, even though every single organized group fighting to stop them uses the services that data centers provide. 

What is needed is a real collaboration between the adversaries of data centers and the advocates. Must there always be winners and losers? Is there no possibility of a universal win-win-win for all parties?

Sources:

Lincoln & the Rock Island Bridge Case

Hurd vs. Rock Island Railroad Company

Lincoln's Greatest Case (Tennessee Bar Assn.)

Abraham Lincoln and the Rock Island Bridge

Collision of Interests