I was traveling westbound on the Illinois U.S Route I #55 Stevenson Expressway one morning in July of 2009, and spotted this unique former steam era railroad drawbridge just east of South Ashland Avenue near Chicago's Bridgeport neighborhood.
This railroad drawbridge, wich has long since ceased being a drawbridge many years ago and lost it's bridge tenders tower in late 2001, spans a portion of the south branch of the Chicago River known as Bubbly Creek. Bubbly Creek near Chicago's port Bridgeport neighborhood on the southside of Chicago, was named as such, as workers from the nearby Union Stockyards dumped unwanted slaughtered livestock body parts in to the water. As the slaughtered animal parts would decompose, gas bubbles would rise to the surface of this waterway. Remember...There was no such thing as the Environmental Protection Agency or polution control standards during Chicago's Victorian era.
This bridge is located adjacent to the Chicago Transit Authority's Ashland Avenue orange line rapid transit station, and still sees many freight trains crossing it today.
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And the bubbles can still be seen Bubbly Creek to this day, so many decades later. The surface of the water looks like soda pop with the effervescence bubbles gently breaking the surface.
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