`FREE' BRIDGE PROBABLY WILL HAVE TO BE RAZED

You see the ads from time to time in magazines devoted to historic preservation or trade journals for highway contractors: Bridge available for removal and restoration. Contact the Missouri Department of Transportation.

The old bridge over the Mississippi River here at Cape Girardeau has been advertised. The transportation department will give it away to anyone who can afford to remove it, which is a major consideration.

There aren't many takers, particularly when the bridge is a long one. Some of the shorter spans are easier to remove and have more usefulness in another location.

One major bridge that has failed to attract any takers is the old span across the Mississippi at Hannibal. The structure, built in the 1930s, is being replaced by a four-lane bridge to be open in 2000. Although a town in California was interested, it couldn't come up with the money to take the bridge down and move it. As a result, the highway department plans to raze the bridge.

This is probably a harbinger of the fate of the bridge here as well. The old bridge is likely to be razed after the new bridge opens in 2001.

By the way, work on the new bridge started last year and is expected to take about 4 1/2 years. When the existing bridge was built, work started in February 1927, and the bridge was dedicated in September 1928, some 17 months later.