Market Street Bridge (Chattanooga)

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**Market Street Bridge**

Official name	Chief John Ross Bridge
Carries	4 lanes of North Market St.
Crosses	Tennessee River
Locale	Chattanooga, Tennessee
Design	Double-leaf Bascule bridge
Longest span	358.8 ft (109 m)
Total length	1894.5 ft (577 m)
Width	36 ft (11 m)
Opening date	1917
Destruction date	Currently closed for restoration; to reopen mid/late 2007
Maps and aerial photos Street map from Google Maps or Yahoo! Maps Topographic map from TopoZone Aerial image or topographic map from TerraServer-USA Satellite image from Google Maps or Microsoft Virtual Earth

The Market Street Bridge, officially referred to as the John Ross Bridge, is a bascule bridge that spans the Tennessee River between downtown Chattanooga and the Northshore District. It carries North Market Street (formerly designated as U.S. Highway 127), and was named in honor of Cherokee Chief John Ross. The bridge was completed in 1917 at a cost of USD$1 million, a huge sum of money at that time. In the mid 1970s, the southern terminus of US-127 was moved several miles north to the intersection of Dayton Avenue and Signal Mountain Boulevard in the nearby suburb of Red Bank. The bridge is currently closed for a long-overdue renovation, and is slated to reopen in 2007, when the bridge will turn 90 years old.