| Gordon Persons Bridge | |
|---|---|
View of the bridge from SR-193. |
|
| Other name(s) | Dauphin Island Bridge |
| Carries | 2 lanes of Alabama State Route 193 |
| Crosses | Gulf Intracoastal Waterway |
| Locale | Dauphin Island, Alabama |
| Total length | 17,814 feet (5,430 m)[1] |
| Longest span | 400 feet (122 m)[1] |
| Opened | 1982 |
The Dauphin Island Bridge, formally the Gordon Persons Bridge, carries a 3-mile (4.8 km), two-lane section of Alabama State Route 193 from mainland Mobile County, Alabama across the Gulf Intracoastal Waterway to Dauphin Island. The natural channel followed by the Gulf Intracoastal Waterway at this location is Pass Aux Herons. The bridge separates the Mississippi Sound on the west from Mobile Bay on the east. It was named in honor of Seth Gordon Persons, the forty-sixth governor of Alabama.
The original bridge opened on July 2, 1955.[2] It was destroyed by Hurricane Frederic in 1979 and was replaced by a fixed precast concrete segmental bridge in 1982. The central main span was the first use of a 400-foot (122 m) span on a precast concrete segmental bridge.[1]
On January 7, 2008, 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.[3] He was sentenced to death on April 30, 2009.[4]