{"id":9625,"date":"2026-09-16T13:30:54","date_gmt":"2026-09-16T13:30:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/digital-desert.com\/blog\/?p=9625"},"modified":"2026-09-16T13:30:54","modified_gmt":"2026-09-16T13:30:54","slug":"the-first-railroad-bridge-at-needles","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/digital-desert.com\/blog\/the-first-railroad-bridge-at-needles\/","title":{"rendered":"The First Railroad Bridge at Needles"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The Atlantic and Pacific Railroad completed the first railroad bridge across the Colorado River near Needles on August 9, 1883. The wooden pile bridge stood at Eastbridge, about three miles southeast of present-day Needles, and connected the Atlantic and Pacific with the Southern Pacific Railroad.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The location proved poorly suited for a permanent crossing. Crews drove wooden pilings into the river\u2019s deep, shifting alluvial soil, where floods repeatedly undermined the structure. The Colorado damaged or destroyed the bridge in 1884, 1886, and 1888, forcing the railroad to rebuild it each time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">In 1890, the railroad abandoned the Eastbridge crossing and rerouted its tracks downstream to the new steel Red Rock Bridge near Topock. The original wooden bridge was then dismantled. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"600\" height=\"401\" src=\"https:\/\/digital-desert.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/600-972-eastbridge-az-needles-Old-Ppile-bridge-built-just-east-of-Needles-by-Atlantic-and-Pacific-Railroad-in-1883-color.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-9626\" srcset=\"https:\/\/digital-desert.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/600-972-eastbridge-az-needles-Old-Ppile-bridge-built-just-east-of-Needles-by-Atlantic-and-Pacific-Railroad-in-1883-color.jpg 600w, https:\/\/digital-desert.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/600-972-eastbridge-az-needles-Old-Ppile-bridge-built-just-east-of-Needles-by-Atlantic-and-Pacific-Railroad-in-1883-color-300x201.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 709px) 85vw, (max-width: 909px) 67vw, (max-width: 984px) 61vw, (max-width: 1362px) 45vw, 600px\" \/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Historic photograph and description -Huntington Library -mssMarston papers V103\/0125  (colorized- wfeller)<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Atlantic and Pacific Railroad completed the first railroad bridge across the Colorado River near Needles on August 9, 1883. The wooden pile bridge stood at Eastbridge, about three miles southeast of present-day Needles, and connected the Atlantic and Pacific with the Southern Pacific Railroad. The location proved poorly suited for a permanent crossing. Crews &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/digital-desert.com\/blog\/the-first-railroad-bridge-at-needles\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;The First Railroad Bridge at Needles&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[215],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9625","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-articles"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/digital-desert.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9625","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/digital-desert.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/digital-desert.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/digital-desert.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/digital-desert.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9625"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/digital-desert.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9625\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9627,"href":"https:\/\/digital-desert.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9625\/revisions\/9627"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/digital-desert.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9625"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/digital-desert.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9625"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/digital-desert.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9625"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}