Caruthersville Bridge
Coordinates	36°06′54″N 89°36′47″W / 36.11500°N 89.61306°W / 36.11500; -89.61306
Carries	4 lanes of I-155 / US 412
Crosses	Mississippi River
Locale	Caruthersville, Missouri and Dyersburg, Tennessee
Maintained by	Tennessee Department of Transportation
ID number	23I01550001
Characteristics
Design	Cantilever bridge
Total length	7,102 feet (2,165 m)
Width	78 feet (24 m)
Longest span	920 feet (280 m) and 520 feet (158 m)
Clearance below	99 feet (30 m)
History
Opened	December 1, 1976
Statistics
Daily traffic	9,900
Location

The Caruthersville Bridge is a single tower cantilever bridge carrying Interstate 155 and U.S. Route 412 across the Mississippi River between Caruthersville, Missouri and Dyersburg, Tennessee. It is the only bridge that connects Missouri and Tennessee. It stands downstream of the Cairo Mississippi River Bridge and upstream of the Hernando de Soto Bridge.

History

The bridge was first proposed in the early 1940s.^[1] A committee was created by both state legislatures to study the possibility of constructing the bridge in 1949.^[2] The site was chosen by the commission on November 18, 1952,^[3] which was subsequently approved by the Army Corps of Engineers on August 20, 1953.^[4] Construction of the bridge began in March 1969.^[5] The bridge cost US$25,800,000 (equivalent to $132,681,404 in 2022) and was opened on December 1, 1976, in a ceremony by Missouri Governor Kit Bond and Tennessee Governor Ray Blanton.^[6][7] It is the only bridge to cross the Mississippi River between Cairo, Illinois and Memphis, Tennessee, though the Dorena-Hickman Ferry also crosses the Mississippi in this area. It is also the only bridge to connect the states of Missouri and Tennessee directly. Interstate 155 connects Dyersburg, Tennessee (and the proposed Interstate 69) with Interstate 55 near Caruthersville, Missouri and Hayti, Missouri. U.S. Route 412, when created in 1982, was routed across the bridge.