Мемфисско-Арканзасский мост: История и архитектура

Highway bridge in Memphis, Tennessee, United States

The Memphis & Arkansas Bridge, also known as the Memphis–Arkansas Bridge or inaccurately as the Memphis–Arkansas Memorial Bridge, is a cantilevered through truss bridge carrying Interstate 55 across the Mississippi River between West Memphis, Arkansas and Memphis, Tennessee. Memphians refer to this bridge as the "Old Bridge" to distinguish it from the "New Bridge", or Hernando de Soto Bridge, upstream. The Memphis & Arkansas Bridge also carries U. S. Route 61 (US 61), US 64, US 70, US 78, and US 79 from Memphis to West Memphis; it also carried US 63 prior to its truncation (and later rerouting) in Arkansas. The western terminus of Tennessee State Route 1 (SR 1) sits on the Tennessee–Arkansas boundary halfway across the bridge.

The bridge consists of five Warren through trusses, each with a length of 790 feet (241 m). Combined with the approach segments, the bridge's total length is 5222 feet (1592 m). Completed in 1949, it is the only bridge spanning the Mississippi River designed to carry exclusively vehicular traffic that was built before 1950. It was designed by Modjeski and Masters, successors to the firm that designed the Harahan Bridge, built in 1916 to carry vehicular and rail traffic. The bridge was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2001. Despite common references to this bridge as a "Memorial Bridge", most likely resulting from its opening shortly after World War II, there is no evidence that this bridge was ever intended to be a memorial to anything. There is no mention of any memorial intent on the bridge's nameplates, including a dedicatory poem on one nameplate (officially attributed to Walter Chandler) that appears to focus on the traffic expected to cross the bridge rather than any memorial. (This is in contrast to the Harahan Bridge, which was named for a railroad executive who died in an accident during the bridge's construction.) Crump himself, for whom the boulevard originally leading to the bridge was named, lived until 1954; Chandler lived until 1967.

The Memphis & Arkansas Bridge was inspired by the ever increasing flow of traffic on the single lane cantilevered "wagonways" of the Harahan Bridge from its opening in 1916 all the way to this bridge's opening in 1949. This increased traffic led to the incorporation of West Memphis, Arkansas in 1927 where the Arkansas roadways leading to the Harahan Bridge came together, as well as the 1930 replacement by the Arkansas State Highway Commission (ASHC), the modern day version of which oversees the Arkansas Department of Transportation, of the original wooden viaduct leading from West Memphis to the Harahan Bridge. Most of the 1930 viaduct was reused for the Memphis & Arkansas Bridge until the present I 55 viaduct replaced it in the 1980's; a small portion of that viaduct now serves as the Arkansas entrance to the Harahan Bridge's Big River Crossing (built on one of its former "wagonways"). Planning for the new bridge began in 1939 with the creation of a joint Memphis Arkansas bridge commission headed by longtime Memphis political boss E. H. Crump.

Though Crump Boulevard was originally intended to serve as the main access to the bridge from Memphis, TDOT replaced the west end of Crump Boulevard with a stretch of I 55 in the 1960's. The issues resulting from the cloverleaf interchange at I 55 and Crump, required to accommodate a 90 degree change in I 55's direction onto the bridge, have led to more recent traffic problems including a failed TDOT plan that would have required a long term closure of I 55 and the bridge in order to reconstruct the interchange, as well as lane closures and other issues at the interchange during the 2021 I 40 bridge closure during which this was the only open bridge at Memphis. On August 12, 2012, a cyclist was killed after being struck by a vehicle when using the shoulder approaching the bridge. On December 23, 2014, numerous news sources reported that the FBI had released an official statement warning local law enforcements of a threat to the bridge during that month. The FBI stated, "according to an anonymous complainant ISIS instructed an ISIS member, a presumed USPER (U. S. person) in Memphis, with a direct order to blow up the Memphis–Arkansas bridge on an unknown date, activating ISIS terror cells in the United States." Security was heightened, but the threat was later discredited.

In December 2023, an announcement was made that the bridge will be replaced. Construction is scheduled for 2026 to begin for the replacement bridge.

Annual average daily traffic (AADT) figures reported by the Tennessee Department of Transportation for 2018, three years before the notable 2021 closure of the I 40 Hernando de Soto Bridge or "new bridge", show that the I 55 "old bridge" carries substantially more vehicles (64,520) than the I 40 bridge (37,308) despite its being older and narrower. Meanwhile, similar figures reported by the Arkansas Department of Transportation for 2020, the year before the I 40 bridge closure, from devices that also measure percentage of truck traffic suggest that though the I 40 bridge had slightly more vehicles (47,000) than the I 55 bridge (45,000), the I 55 bridge actually had a higher percentage of truck traffic (37 percent) than the I 40 bridge (26 percent).

The bridge can be seen in scenes of the 1989 film Great Balls of Fire! starring Dennis Quaid as Jerry Lee Lewis. The bridge is referenced in the Chuck Berry song "Memphis, Tennessee," where it is simply called "the Mississippi bridge."