This towering viaduct has provided access to KC’s West Bottoms for more than a century

By the late 1800s Kansas City faced a serious transportation issue.

The steep bluffs between downtown (which was spreading south from the river) and the West Bottoms, where the train station stockyards and other industries were located, presented a very vertical obstacle.

To solve it, a pair of “Inclines” were built on 9th and 12th Streets—engineering marvels that might pass for amusement park rides today. Later, a streetcar line running up to the bluffs and through a tunnel at 8th Street also served the cause.

Finally, in 1915, the 12th Street Trafficway Viaduct arrived to save the day. (A viaduct differs from a bridge in that it doesn’t necessarily cross over water to connect two places.)

This one was a beauty, designed by KC’s own Waddell & Harrington. At its highest point, the double decker towered 118 feet over the railroad tracks below. To accommodate horse-drawn traffic, the lower deck offered a gentler grade of just 2.5%.

With a graceful bowstring arch in the center, It was, at the time, one of the country’s largest reinforced concrete bridges. One writer hailed it as Missouri’s “foremost urban viaduct.”

For fifty years, it served its purpose admirably, but larger cars and trucks eventually took a toll. Though there was discussion of replacing the viaduct completely, a decision was made to rehabilitate it and add two more lanes onto the upper deck.

Eight months later, it was opened just in time for the 1965 American Royal.

Since then, the 12th Street Viaduct has continued to be an aging but elegant workhorse—pausing briefly for its closeup in 1997, when the structure and some creepy inhabitants appeared in a music video for U2’s “Last Night on Earth.”

Having trouble seeing the video? Watch it here.

Looking for more Kansas City history?

The 8th Street tunnel is just part of the local history found underground

Neighborhood grocery stores once dotted all parts of the city. Midtown had lots of them.

His name is on one of KC’s best known boulevards--how August Meyer helped make the city beautiful