The Missouri Valley Bridge & Iron Co., also known as Missouri Valley Bridge Company, was a engineering, construction, and steel fabrication firm that operated through the late nineteenth and most of the twentieth centuries. It was based in Leavenworth, Kansas, with a WWII facility in Evansville, Indiana.
The company was formed in 1874 by Edwin Farnsworth and D. W. Eaves in Leavenworth, Kansas.[1] In 1888, it was acquired by Alonzo. J. Tullock,[2] who had previously served as the engineer and manager of the firm. Katherine S. Tullock, Alonzo's widow, served as the president from 1907 to 1921, an unusual development for the time in a male-dominated field. Her son, Hubert S. Tullock became president of the firm in 1921.[1]
Throughout the early twentieth century, the firm supplied and built bridges across the country. These projects included the Free Bridge and the McKinley Bridge, both across the Mississippi River.[1]
Many of the company's bridges are listed on the U.S. National Register of Historic Places.[3][4] They include:
The Oregon Trunk Rail Bridge, a non−NRHP-listed one, was erected by the company across the Columbia River in Oregon and Washington. It is an approximately 3,000-foot (910 m) railroad bridge across the river, built in 1911 and opened in January 1912.[5] The steel superstructure was manufactured by the Pennsylvania Steel Company, and erected by MVB&I company.[5]
During World War II the MVB&I company opened two shipyards, at Evansville, Indiana and at Leavenworth, Kansas. 171 LSTs (Landing Ship, Tank), 64 Landing craft tank and three YSD-11 Class Seaplane Wrecking Derrick were built during the war at Evansville, before the yard closed in 1945.[6] The company ranked 98th among United States corporations in the value of World War II military production contracts.[7]
The Leavenworth yard built a wide range of smaller naval and military vessels, continuing in business after the war, producing mainly towboats and barges until 1982.[8]
