Brookport Bridge
   HOME

TheInfoList



OR:

The Brookport Bridge (officially the Paducah-Brookport Bridge 1929–43, and the Irvin S. Cobb Bridge since 1943) is a ten-span, steel deck (grate), narrow two-lane
truss bridge A truss bridge is a bridge whose load-bearing superstructure is composed of a truss, a structure of connected elements, usually forming triangular units. The connected elements, typically straight, may be stressed from tension, compression, or ...
that carries U.S. Route 45 (US 45) across the
Ohio River The Ohio River () is a river in the United States. It is located at the boundary of the Midwestern and Southern United States, flowing in a southwesterly direction from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, to its river mouth, mouth on the Mississippi Riv ...
in the U.S. states of
Illinois Illinois ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the Midwestern United States, Midwestern United States. It borders on Lake Michigan to its northeast, the Mississippi River to its west, and the Wabash River, Wabash and Ohio River, Ohio rivers to its ...
and
Kentucky Kentucky (, ), officially the Commonwealth of Kentucky, is a landlocked U.S. state, state in the Southeastern United States, Southeastern region of the United States. It borders Illinois, Indiana, and Ohio to the north, West Virginia to the ...
. It connects
Paducah, Kentucky Paducah ( ) is a List of cities in Kentucky, home rule-class city in the Upland South, and the county seat of McCracken County, Kentucky, United States. The most populous city in the Jackson Purchase region, it is located in the Southeastern Unit ...
, north to
Brookport, Illinois Brookport is a city in Massac County, Illinois, United States. The population was 725 at the 2020 census, down from 984 in 2010. It is part of the Paducah, KY-IL Metropolitan Statistical Area. History Brookport was founded by Charles Pell ...
.


History

On February 4, 1927, Kentucky congressman Alben William Barkley introduced a bill authorizing the Paducah Board of Trade to construct the bridge. Following House and Senate passage, President
Calvin Coolidge Calvin Coolidge (born John Calvin Coolidge Jr.; ; July 4, 1872January 5, 1933) was the 30th president of the United States, serving from 1923 to 1929. A Republican Party (United States), Republican lawyer from Massachusetts, he previously ...
signed the bill on February 23. Paducah's Board of Trade consulted with several bond houses about financing, and the bid from Toledo's Stranahan, Harris & Otis was accepted on March 17, with construction cost then estimated as one to two million dollars. Traffic surveys—preliminaries to siting the bridge—began on March 24. The bridge was designed by the Kansas City firm of Harrington, Howard and Ashe, and construction was superintended by Chicago's P.W. Chapman & Company. The Paducah-Ohio River Bridge Company would be the bridge's legal owner-operator. The final obstacle to groundbreaking was surmounted upon obtaining the War Department's approval for the project on July 22. Construction began in the fall of 1927 and continued year-round, sometimes slowed by high water on the Ohio River. As early as October 1928, the State of Kentucky proposed taking over the bridge and—once tolls had paid off its bonds—making passage toll-free. The Paducah-Brookport Bridge officially opened on Sunday, April 14, 1929, with a toll schedule of ten cents for pedestrians, bicyclists, and passengers on buses; fifty cents for horse-drawn vehicles; $1 for an automobile and its driver, with five cents added for each passenger; and higher tolls for trucks and other large vehicles. The bridge's final cost was approximately $2 million, and it was used by approximately 1200 automobiles on its first day in operation. The bridge's formal dedication was on May 9, 1929, with thousands in attendance. The ceremonial ribbon-cutting by "Miss Paducah" Hazel Miller, and appearances of Paducah's and Brookport's mayors, were included in Paramount's newsreel celebrating these festivities. Sunday toll discounts, implemented soon after the bridge's opening, boosted tourism to Paducah and Brookport. By mid-August, all fares were reduced, and round-trip discounts offered: $1 for any automobile and its passengers, $1.25 for the two-way fare. On October 23, 1929, a river steamer, the ''Chaperon''—which was towing a showboat—struck a submerged concrete block below the bridge which had been created to facilitate construction but was unmarked by light or buoy. The Paducah-Brookport Bridge Company, along with the Milwaukee builder the Wisconsin Bridge and Iron Co., were sued for $40,000. The lawsuit was heard in Louisville on June 9 in the U.S. District Court in Louisville. In 1932, the Paducah-Brookport Bridge Company indicated its willingness to explore a sale to the State of Kentucky. Until September 1933, that firm operated the bridge; whereupon the bridge's bondholders—in a procedure commonly used to protect such mortgages—sold the bridge in foreclosure to a Delaware-registered corporation supervised by the bondholders, the Kentucky-Illinois Bridge Corporation, for $300,000. During its first six years of operation, the bridge's average annual gross income from tolls were only about $69,000, and net losses for 1931-1932-1933 alone totaled $457,509.40. On February 15, 1935, the Kentucky State Highway Commission voted 6–2 to purchase the bridge for $800,000, subject to approval by the Federal court supervising its receivership status. On July 10, the state formally awarded $800,000 in bridge bonds, paying 3-1/2% annually for 20 years, to the Kentucky-Illinois Bridge Company, the bonds to be underwritten primarily through tolls; the bond transfer would be completed by August 15. The State of Kentucky gradually reduced tolls. In February 1938, a 90-day experiment further lowered the passenger car fee to 25 cents each way, anticipating that increases in vehicle traffic would make up for the reduced fees, and the reduction was made permanent in June. By 1939, an average of 1000 vehicles daily were using the bridge. In February 1941, the toll for automobiles was again reduced, to 15 cents. In November 1943, the structure was renamed the Irvin S. Cobb Bridge as a tribute to the state's famed journalist-humorist
Irvin S. Cobb Irvin Shrewsbury Cobb (June 23, 1876 – March 11, 1944) was an American author, humorist, editor and columnist from Paducah, Kentucky, who relocated to New York in 1904, living there for the remainder of his life. He wrote for the ''New York Wor ...
, a Paducah native. That same month, tolls were eliminated."Free Brookport Bridge Nov. 24." ''Paducah Sun-Democrat'', November 19, 1943, 1. By the 1960s, a Paducah newspaper columnist was among those hoping for a modern replacement: The nearby four-lane Interstate 24 Bridge, three miles west of the Cobb bridge, was completed in 1973. The Cobb bridge—still the “Brookport bridge” to many locals—is presently challenging to cross, due to its very narrow lanes and steel grate deck. It is restricted to vehicles less than 8 feet (2.4 m) in width and 9 feet 6 inches (2.90 m) in height, preventing most commercial vehicles from using the bridge.


See also

* * * * *
List of crossings of the Ohio River This is a complete list of current bridges and other crossings of the Ohio River from the mouth at the Mississippi River at Cairo, Illinois to the confluence of the Allegheny River, Allegheny and Monongahela Rivers at Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, Penns ...


References


External links


Brookport-Paducah Bridge
at Bridges & Tunnels
archive

BrookportBridge.com
- Shows if the bridge is open or closed during winter weather.
archive

Brookport Bridge details
on historicbridges.org
archive
{{Authority control Bridges over the Ohio River Road bridges in Illinois Road bridges in Kentucky Steel bridges in the United States Truss bridges in the United States Bridges of the United States Numbered Highway System U.S. Route 45 Buildings and structures in Massac County, Illinois Buildings and structures in Paducah, Kentucky Bridges completed in 1929 Transportation in Massac County, Illinois Transportation in McCracken County, Kentucky 1929 establishments in Kentucky 1929 establishments in Illinois