Portal:Trains/Selected article/Week 13, 2018

The Kate Shelley High Bridge, officially called the Boone Viaduct when it was completed in 1901, was one of the highest and longest double-track railroad bridges in the United States. It is located approximately 3 mi west of Boone, Iowa. It was nicknamed for the Iowa railroad heroine, Kate Shelley. In 1881, when she was 17 years old, Kate Shelley risked her life to warn a passenger train by crossing the Des Moines River Bridge near Moingona at night, during a thunderstorm. Her goal was to warn the passenger train that the next bridge was out. That train had already been stopped. She then led rescuers to two men still in the swollen, flooded Honey Creek near her house, and they were saved. The bridge was designed by George S. Morison for the Chicago & North Western Railway and was constructed from 1899 to 1901. It stands 185 ft above the Des Moines River and is 2685 ft long. The bridge was never officially renamed for Kate Shelley, but there were many commemorations there to honor her as if it carried that name. Gradually it became better known as the Kate Shelley High Bridge, or just the Kate Shelley Bridge, and the popularity of the Boone Viaduct name faded.