Rails Across the Mississippi

Robert W. Jackson is an urban planner and historian who has worked for the National Park Service, Historic American Engineering Record, and on documentation projects in Iowa, Pennsylvania, and Texas.

"[The Eads Bridge ] has long been recognized as one of the outstanding civil engineering accomplishments of 19th-century America...Jackson portrays Eads as an eccentric engineer with a dominating personality who was concerned more with building a unique and enduring monument than with keeping costs down and insuring timely completion and profitability. The research is thorough, the writing excellent." Choice