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Bill Emerson Memorial Bridge | |
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Coordinates | 37°17′43″N89°30′57″W / 37.29528°N 89.51583°W |
Carries | 4 lanes of Route 34 / Route 74 / IL 146 |
Crosses | Mississippi River |
Locale | Cape Girardeau, Missouri and East Cape Girardeau, Illinois |
Maintained by | Missouri Department of Transportation |
Characteristics | |
Design | Cable-stayed bridge |
Total length | 3,955 feet (1,205 m) |
Width | 94 feet (29 m) |
Longest span | 1,149 feet (350 m) |
Clearance below | 60 feet (18 m) |
History | |
Opened | December 13, 2003 |
Location | |
The Bill Emerson Memorial Bridge is a cable-stayed bridge connecting Missouri's Route 34 and Route 74 with Illinois Route 146 across the Mississippi River between Cape Girardeau, Missouri and East Cape Girardeau, Illinois. [1]
It was built just south of its predecessor, the Cape Girardeau Bridge, which was completed in 1928 and demolished in 2004.
The bridge is named after Bill Emerson, a Missouri politician who served in the U.S. House of Representatives from 1981 until his death in 1996. Planning for the four-lane structure began in June 1987, and construction began in late 1996. Several factors have been blamed for the bridge's many delays in planning and construction, including Illinois' reluctance to participate in the project, as well as issues with the bedrock of the river (this resulted in the hiring of a new contractor).
The bridge is featured in the 2014 David Fincher film Gone Girl . [2] [3]
The Great River Road is a collection of state and local roads that follow the course of the Mississippi River through ten states of the United States. They are Minnesota, Wisconsin, Iowa, Illinois, Missouri, Kentucky, Tennessee, Arkansas, Mississippi and Louisiana. It formerly extended north into Canada, serving the provinces of Ontario and Manitoba. The road is designated as both a National Scenic Byway and an All-American Road in several states along the route.
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Cape Girardeau is a city in Cape Girardeau and Scott Counties in the U.S. state of Missouri. At the 2020 census, the population was 39,540. The city is one of two principal cities of the Cape Girardeau-Jackson, MO-IL Metropolitan Statistical Area, which encompasses Alexander County, Illinois, Bollinger County, Missouri and Cape Girardeau County, Missouri and has a population of 97,517. The sliver of the city located in Scott County is part of the Sikeston Micropolitan Statistical Area, and the entire city forms the core of the Cape Girardeau-Sikeston Combined Statistical Area.
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Jo Ann Emerson is an American politician who was the U.S. representative for Missouri's 8th congressional district from 1996 to 2013. The district consists of Southeast and South Central Missouri and includes the Bootheel, the Lead Belt and the Ozarks. Emerson is a member of the Republican Party. On January 22, 2013, Emerson resigned her seat in Congress to become the president and chief executive officer of the National Rural Electric Cooperative Association. She served as CEO until August 2015.
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Forgottonia, also spelled Forgotonia, is the name given to a 16-county region in Western Illinois in the late 1960s and early 1970s. This geographic region forms the distinctive western bulge of Illinois that is roughly equivalent to "The Tract", the Illinois portion of the Military Tract of 1812, along and west of the Fourth Principal Meridian. Since this wedge-shaped region lies between the Illinois and Mississippi rivers, it has historically been isolated from the eastern portion of Central Illinois.
Norvell William Emerson was an American politician. He served as a member of the United States House of Representatives from Missouri from 1981 until his death from lung cancer in Bethesda, Maryland in 1996. He was succeeded in the House by his widow, Jo Ann Emerson. Emerson was a Republican.
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