1835, a former riverboat pilot, Elijah Buell, along with his business partner, John Baker, located a ferry service at a place north of the current bridge location called "the Narrows." Baker established himself on the Illinois side of the river, and Buell settled on the Iowa side. Baker's settlement eventually became the City of Fulton, Illinois. Buell's settlement was chartered by Buell and three partners (George Harlan, Dennis Warren, and Chalkey Hoag) in 1837 as Lyons, Iowa, named for the city of the same name in France. Because of the popularity of the river ferry, both Fulton and Lyons grew very rapidly. In 1852, citizens of Lyons learnt that a new railroad would be built westward of Iowa, which led to possibilities of a Mississippi River railroad crossing between Lyons and Fulton. The Iowa Land Company was organized in 1855 with the announcement that a railroad crossing was to be attempted south of Lyons and Fulton. The land company bought Bartlett's holdings on the Iowa side of the river and re-platted them under the name Clinton, Iowa, in honor of the Governor of New York, DeWitt Clinton. The Chicago, Iowa, and Nebraska (C&IN) Railroad Company was formed to effect the railroad crossing at Little Rock Island, between the new city of Clinton and the village of Albany, Illinois. However, C&IN went bankrupt in 1862, and was later purchased by the Cedar Rapids and Missouri River Railroad. Construction In 1858, Chicago, Iowa & Nebraska Railroad began construction of the bridge. On January 15, 1859, the first piers for the bridge was driven and on December 14 that year, the last span was dropped. The first railroad bridge at Clinton was declared open for operation at noon on January 19, 1860, as the first train crossed the bridge. It would be the second railway crossing over the entire Mississippi River. However, the entire span was not yet complete, and railway cars had to be ferried across the main channel of the river between Little Rock Island and the Iowa shoreline. The final segment of the original span was completed in 1864, the same year that the C&IN merged with the Galena & Chicago Union Railroad to form the Chicago and North Western (C&NW) Railroad. This company operated the bridge, and its successor, the current bridge, constructed in 1907, until the Union Pacific Railway Company purchased the C&NW in 1995. The bridge was