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 located in the southwestern corner of the U.S. state of Alabama. It is the second most-populous county in the state after Jefferson County. As of the 2020 census, its population was 414,809. Its county seat is Mobile, wh ...

across the

Gulf Intracoastal Waterway The Gulf Intracoastal Waterway is the portion of the Intracoastal Waterway located along the Gulf Coast of the United States. It is a navigable inland waterway running approximately from Carrabelle, Florida, to Brownsville, Texas. The waterwa ...

Dauphin Island Dauphin Island is an island town in Mobile County, Alabama, United States, on a barrier island of the same name, in the Gulf of Mexico. It incorporated in 1988. The population was 1,778 at the 2020 census, up from 1,238 at the 2010 census. The t ...

. 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 Waveland, Mississippi, to the Dauphin Island Bridge, a distance of about . The sound is sepa ...

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. The ...

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 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 only five were killed directly, the US ...

in 1979 and was replaced by a fixed

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

segmental bridge A segmental bridge is a bridge built in short sections (called segments), i.e., one piece at a time, as opposed to traditional methods that build a bridge in very large sections. The bridge is made of concrete that is either cast-in-place (constru ...

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 four children, including three of his own, 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