The Congressman William L. Clay Sr. Bridge, formerly known as the Bernard F. Dickmann Bridge and popularly as the Poplar Street Bridge or PSB, completed in 1967, is a deck

girder bridge A girder bridge is a bridge that uses girders as the means of supporting its deck. The two most common types of modern steel girder bridges are plate and box. The term "girder" is often used interchangeably with "beam" in reference to bridge de ...

across the

Mississippi River The Mississippi River is the second-longest river and chief river of the second-largest drainage system in North America, second only to the Hudson Bay drainage system. From its traditional source of Lake Itasca in northern Minnesota, it f ...

between

St. Louis, Missouri St. Louis () is the second-largest city in Missouri, United States. It sits near the confluence of the Mississippi River, Mississippi and the Missouri Rivers. In 2020, the city proper had a population of 301,578, while the Greater St. Louis, ...

, and

East St. Louis, Illinois East St. Louis is a city in St. Clair County, Illinois. It is directly across the Mississippi River from Downtown St. Louis, Missouri and the Gateway Arch National Park. East St. Louis is in the Metro-East region of Southern Illinois. Once a b ...

. The bridge arrives on the Missouri shore line just south of the

Gateway Arch The Gateway Arch is a monument in St. Louis, Missouri, United States. Clad in stainless steel and built in the form of a weighted catenary arch, it is the world's tallest arch and Missouri's tallest accessible building. Some sources conside ...

Background

Planned just before construction of the Arch, the builders in 1959 were to request that of the Gateway Arch property be turned over from the

National Park Service The National Park Service (NPS) is an agency of the United States federal government within the U.S. Department of the Interior that manages all national parks, most national monuments, and other natural, historical, and recreational propertie ...

for the bridge. The request generated enormous controversy and ultimately of the Jefferson Expansion National Memorial (which included all of the original platted area of St. Louis when it was acquired in the 1930s and 1940s) was given to the bridge.

Usage

Two

Interstate The Dwight D. Eisenhower National System of Interstate and Defense Highways, commonly known as the Interstate Highway System, is a network of controlled-access highways that forms part of the National Highway System in the United States. Th ...

s and a

U.S. Highway The United States Numbered Highway System (often called U.S. Routes or U.S. Highways) is an integrated network of roads and highways numbered within a nationwide grid in the contiguous United States. As the designation and numbering of these h ...

cross the entire bridge. Approximately 100,000 vehicles cross the bridge daily, making it the second most heavily used bridge on the river, after the I-94 Dartmouth Bridge in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Some of that load has been diverted to the

Stan Musial Veterans Memorial Bridge The Stan Musial Veterans Memorial Bridge (known as the New Mississippi River Bridge until its formal naming in 2013 and informally known as the "Stan Span") is a bridge across the Mississippi River in the United States between St. Clair County, ...

since its opening in 2014.

Routes and highways

I-55 Interstate 55 (I-55) is a major Interstate Highway in the central United States. As with most primary Interstates that end in a five, it is a major cross-country, north–south route, connecting the Gulf of Mexico to the Great Lakes. The h ...

I-64 Interstate 64 (I-64) is an east–west Interstate Highway in the Eastern United States. Its western terminus is at I-70, U.S. Route 40 (US 40), and US 61 in Wentzville, Missouri. Its eastern terminus is at an interchange w ...

and U.S. Route 40 (US 40) cross the Mississippi on the Poplar Street Bridge. US 66 also ran concurrently over this bridge until 1979, and US 50 was routed over it before the Interstates were constructed. In addition,

I-70 Interstate 70 (I-70) is a major east–west Interstate Highway in the United States that runs from I-15 near Cove Fort, Utah, to a park and ride lot just east of I-695 in Baltimore, Maryland, and is the fifth-longest Interstate in the co ...

crossed the river here until 2014, when it was realigned to cross the river on the Stan Musial Veterans Memorial Bridge when it was completed.

I-44 Interstate 44 (I-44) is a major Interstate Highway in the central United States. Although it is nominally an east–west road as it is even-numbered, it follows a more southwest–northeast alignment. Its western terminus is in Wichita Fa ...

now follows the old alignment of I-70 through downtown to the west approach for the Stan Musial Veterans Memorial Bridge although motorists traveling east on I-44 must continue west on I-70 and do not have a direct connection to the bridge (any access to eastbound I-70 requires using the Poplar Street Bridge). The traffic was heavily congested until the opening of the new bridge in early February 2014. In 2012, 123,564 vehicles used it every day, but after the new bridge opened, congestion alleviated by almost 14%, less than the predicted 20% decline with 106,500 vehicles using it every day because total traffic across the river from all bridges increased by 7.4% over 2013 levels.

Historical areas

The east end of the bridge crosses the south end of what was Bloody Island which Robert E. Lee connected to the mainland of Illinois with

landfill A landfill site, also known as a tip, dump, rubbish dump, garbage dump, or dumping ground, is a site for the disposal of waste materials. Landfill is the oldest and most common form of waste disposal, although the systematic burial of the waste ...

in the 1850s. During its island days several Missouri politicians fought duels there. What was Bloody Island is now a train yard.

Name

Although the bridge's former name honors former St. Louis mayor Bernard F. Dickmann, it is most commonly referred to as the Poplar Street Bridge, with many locals unaware of its official name. The Missouri end of the bridge sits over Poplar Street, and the media started referring to it by that name long before the bridge opened due to the fact that the bridge was built over Poplar Street. It was officially renamed as the Congressman William L. Clay Sr. Bridge in October 2013 in honor of

Bill Clay William Lacy Clay Sr (born April 30, 1931) is an American politician from Missouri. As Congressman from Missouri's 1st congressional district, Missouri's first district, he represented portions of St. Louis, Missouri, St. Louis in the U.S. Hou ...

References

External links

* {{Structures in Greater St. Louis Bridges completed in 1967 Road bridges in Illinois Bridges over the Mississippi River East St. Louis, Illinois Interstate 64 Interstate 55 U.S. Route 40 Bridges in St. Louis Bridges on the Interstate Highway System Bridges on U.S. Route 66 Steel bridges in the United States Bridges in St. Clair County, Illinois Road bridges in Missouri Bridges of the United States Numbered Highway System U.S. Route 50 Interstate 70 Girder bridges in the United States 1967 establishments in Missouri 1967 establishments in Illinois Interstate vehicle bridges in the United States