The Dauphin Island Bridge, formally the Gordon Persons Bridge, carries a , two-lane section of Alabama State Route 193 from mainland

Mobile County, Alabama Mobile County ( ) is a County (United States), county located in the southwestern corner of the U.S. state of Alabama. It is the third-most populous county in the state after Jefferson County, Alabama, Jefferson and Madison County, Alabama, Ma ...

across the Gulf Intracoastal Waterway to

Dauphin Island Dauphin Island, formerly Massacre Island (French language, French: ''Île du Massacre'') is an island town in Mobile County, Alabama, Mobile County, Alabama, United States, on a barrier island of the same name, in the Gulf of Mexico. It incorpora ...

. The natural channel followed by the Gulf Intracoastal Waterway at this location is Pass Aux Herons. The bridge separates the

Mississippi Sound The Mississippi Sound is a sound along the Gulf Coast of the United States. It runs east-west along the southern coasts of Mississippi and Alabama, from the mouth of the Pearl River at the Mississippi-Louisiana state border to the Dauphin Islan ...

on the west from

Mobile Bay Mobile Bay ( ) is a shallow inlet of the Gulf of Mexico, lying within the state of Alabama in the United States. Its mouth is formed by the Fort Morgan Peninsula on the eastern side and Dauphin Island, a barrier island on the western side. T ...

on the east. It was named in honor of Seth Gordon Persons, the 46th governor of Alabama.

History

The original bridge opened on July 2, 1955. It was destroyed by

Hurricane Frederic Hurricane Frederic, known in Latin America as Federico, was an intense and damaging tropical cyclone that carved a path of destruction from the Lesser Antilles to Quebec, in particular devastating areas of the United States Gulf Coast. Though ...

in 1979 and was replaced by a fixed

precast concrete Precast concrete is a construction product produced by casting concrete in a reusable molding (process), mold or "form" which is then cured in a controlled environment, transported to the construction site and maneuvered into place; examples i ...

segmental bridge in 1982. The central main span was the first use of a span on a precast concrete segmental bridge. On January 7, 2008, Vietnamese immigrant Lam Luong tossed his four children, to their deaths off of the bridge. In March 2009, a jury in Mobile County convicted him of capital murder for the act. He was sentenced to death on April 30, 2009. His death sentence was reduced to life without parole on October 15, 2018, as it was ruled he was intellectually impaired and had an IQ too low for execution.

References

External links

Jeff Coolidge

Dauphin Island celebrates 50 history changing years

Google map of bridge

Nautical chart of bridge area
{{coord, 30.2921, N, 88.1300, W, type:landmark_scale:50000, display=title Bridges in Mobile County, Alabama Gulf of Mexico Bridges completed in 1955 Bridges completed in 1982 Road bridges in Alabama 1955 establishments in Alabama Concrete bridges in the United States Dauphin Island, Alabama