Hannibal, Missouri.

So, this post is about a relatively new bridge named for a favorite son. But wait, there’s more… If you look closely, another bridge is behind the one in the foreground above. But first, the bridge in the foreground is a four-lane, Steel Truss Through Deck bridge with a total length of 4,491 feet (1,369 m). Completed in October 2000, the bridge is named after Mark Twain, who was born in Hannibal in 1835. Twain’s stories about the Mississippi River were inspired by his childhood in Hannibal, and the bridge provides a modern link to the river that played such an important role in his life.

The purpose of the bridge is to route traffic over the Mississippi River between Illinois and Missouri on I-72. The bridge is 62 feet (19 m) above the Mississippi. It replaced a bridge located a short distance downstream that carried traffic on U.S. Highway 36. That original bridge was demolished and traffic was redirected to the new bridge.

Just upstream of the Mark Twain Memorial Bridge is the Wabash Bridge. The bridge is only 20 feet (6 m) above the water. The majority of bridge sections are Steel Truss through Deck, but the westernmost section is moveable to allow water traffic to move up and downstream. Previously a swing span section, that section was replaced by a vertical lift section. That construction, completed in 1994, closed the single rail bridge for three days as workers removed the swing span and replaced it with a lift span relocated from a bridge over the Tennessee River in Alabama.

You can’t see it in the image above but immediately after reaching the western bank of the river, a sheer rockface required a tunnel be drilled through the high bluff. The current owner of the bridge is the Norfolk Southern Railway. For more details, check here.

An interesting additional detail about the bridge, as documented on Wikipedia here, involves a notable incident in 1982. During this time, a towboat experienced engine failure while navigating through robust river currents, while attempting to handle a convoy of 12 barges laden with grain. As a result, the vessel collided with one of the 250-foot (76 m) truss spans, leading to the span’s collapse into the river. This incident resulted in the entanglement of the tugboat and multiple barges, causing a disruption in river traffic for a period of nine hours. Furthermore, three of the barges managed to break loose from the entanglement and drifted downstream. Fortunately, none of those grain-filled barges struck the Mark Twain Memorial Bridge as they drifted downstream.

An interesting additional detail about the bridge, as documented on Wikipedia here, involves a notable incident in 1982. During this time, a towboat experienced engine failure while navigating through robust river currents, while attempting to handle a convoy of 12 barges laden with grain. As a result, the vessel collided with one of the 250-foot (76 m) truss spans, leading to the span’s collapse into the river. This incident resulted in the entanglement of the tugboat and multiple barges, causing a disruption in river traffic for a period of nine hours. Furthermore, three of the barges managed to break loose from the entanglement and drifted downstream. Fortunately, none of those grain-filled barges struck the Mark Twain Memorial Bridge as they drifted downstream.

For those who’d like to pixel-peep, these images can be viewed in 2K HD via my Flickr site here.

John Steiner