Spinsby Interstate 80 Bridge Construction slides
Scope and Contents
These 35 mm color slides were taken by Marie Spinsby over a period of years documenting the process of building the bridge between Le Claire, Iowa and Rapids City, Illinois. It is named the Fred Schwengel Memorial Bridge after Davenport resident and U.S. Representative Fred Schwengel.
Spinsby's slides were used by the Le Claire Public Library in several Facebook presentations looking back on the event during the summer of 2020. PNG images of those posts are available at the Richardson-Sloane Special Collections Center and contain more information in some cases.
Dates
- Creation: 1963-1966
Conditions Governing Access
This collection is open for research.
Biographical / Historical
In 1931 Marie (Brand) Spinsby was born in Centerville, Iowa and moved to Le Claire at about age 10. She attended Gass School from age 10-16 playing basketball and after graduation served as the team chaperone. She married Kenneth Spinsby, grandson of a riverboat pilot. Marie was employed at Alcoa and after that operated antique shops in the area. Ken and Marie lived less than a mile from the Interstate 80 bridge (Marie still does) and monitored construction progress on a nearly daily basis. During that time she took the photos that became the slides donated.
Recently she and a contemporary have shared their collective memories of Le Claire history via a Le Claire Library program called "Mostly True Tales by Spinsby and Wales".
Extent
156 Photographic Slides (stored in9 slide sheets in 1 folder) : 35 mm color
Language of Materials
English
Physical Location
Range 44 Section 2; Slide Box 1
- Language of description
- English
- Script of description
- Latin
Repository Details
Part of the Richardson-Sloane Special Collections Center Repository
321 Main Street
Davenport IA 52801-1490 United States
specialcollections@davenportlibrary.com