The Martin Luther King Bridge (formerly known as the Veterans Bridge) in St. Louis is a cantilever truss bridge of about 4,000 feet (1,200 m) in total length across the Mississippi River, connecting St. Louis with East St. Louis, Illinois. The bridge serves as traffic relief connecting the concurrent freeways of Interstate 55, Interstate 70, Interstate 64, and U.S. Route 40 with the downtown streets of St. Louis.
The bridge was built in 1951 as t...
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The Martin Luther King Bridge (formerly known as the Veterans Bridge) in St. Louis is a cantilever truss bridge of about 4,000 feet (1,200 m) in total length across the Mississippi River, connecting St. Louis with East St. Louis, Illinois. The bridge serves as traffic relief connecting the concurrent freeways of Interstate 55, Interstate 70, Interstate 64, and U.S. Route 40 with the downtown streets of St. Louis.
The bridge was built in 1951 as the Veterans' Memorial Bridge to relieve congestion on the MacArthur Bridge to the south and was built as a toll bridge and was owned by the City of East St. Louis. At one time, it carried U.S. Route 40 and U.S. Route 66 across the river. In 1967, the bridge fell into disrepair when the (free) Poplar Street Bridge was constructed, and traffic began to use that route, leading to declining toll revenues.
Eventually, ownership was transferred dually to the Missouri and Illinois Departments of Transportation and the bridge was renamed after Martin...
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