TO GIVE AWAY: A WELL-USED BRIDGE

In September, ads in several periodicals and newspapers will offer free to the taker one well-used bridge: the 4,744-foot-long Mississippi River Bridge at Cape Girardeau.

Dedicated on Sept, 3, 1928, it's still sturdy but a bit narrow for the end of the 20th century.

Any transfer of ownership can't occur, of course, until a new Mississippi River Bridge is completed. Even if balky Illinois' part of the funding is acquired soon and a construction contract is let in 1996 as hoped, that day is post-turn of the century.

Once a shining new bridge does span the river, the U.S. Coast Guard requires that the old bridge will have to come down for navigational reasons.

How it comes down and where it will go are still being decided.

A 1992 survey of Missouri's bridges determined that the Cape Girardeau bridge meets two criteria for listing on the National Register of Historic Places, both for its role as a "pivotal interstate crossing" and because of its cantilevered design and unusually long length.

Therefore, "it can't be demolished outright," says Randy Dawdy, historic bridge coordinator for the Missouri Highway and Transportation Department's Design Division.

First the bridge is being offered to anyone who might be able to make use of its historic qualities (see related story). Advertisements for the bridge will run in Preservation News, the Missouri Transportation Bulletin and in local newspapers.

"There are people who would be interested in the whole bridge or just part of the bridge," Dawdy said, historic bridge coordinator for the highway department's design division.

"It has to be used in a tasteful manner that stresses the historic nature of the bridge," he said.

Large sections of the bridge could be moved by barge or rail, and there is a technique for floating the sections themselves on the river.

If no one wants the bridge it will be demolished. "We can drop it in the river, but we don't like to do that, or cut it up and haul it away," Dawdy said.

Explosives or torches or both might be used to dismantle the bridge, Dawdy said. Explosives typically would be used to break up the concrete piers.

If the main span were demolished by explosion, the pieces would be recovered, according to Larry Rohr, a district highway design engineer with the highway department in Sikeston.

Actually, the entire bridge might not be removed. The city's Historic Preservation Commission has at least entertained the idea of trying to preserve the western entrance as an historic lookout extending only to the first abutment.

A similar approach was taken to a bridge replaced in Jefferson City, according to Mike Nelson, a location and layout engineer with the state highway department.

"At least from our standpoint as a bridge, I wouldn't see any problem with leaving it in place," he said.

The Coast Guard probably wouldn't object either, said Roger Wiebusch, bridge administrator for the Second Coast Guard District in St. Louis. The Coast Guard must issue a bridge permit before the new one can be built.

The Historic Preservation Commission recently took a walking tour of the bridge. "It really did seem a novel and good idea," says John Schneider, the commission's chairman. But, he cautioned, "that bridge could be around for a long time."

Kent Bratton, the city's planning director, has concerns about the plan.

"Number one is the accessibility of it," he said. "If you start walking up that bridge ramp, it's a lot steeper than people think."

He said the railroad company whose tracks pass beneath the entrance also might have some concerns, and the city would have to maintain the structure.

"One of the reasons we're getting a new bridge is not only that it's functionally obsolete," he said. "There could be some major expenses in maintaining that thing.

"There are a host of questions that have to be answered."

One steadfast opponent of the idea is Lynette Shirrell, who is a member of the Historic Preservation Commission and lives with her husband Cliff next to the bridge entrance at 14 Morgan Oak St.

The loss of privacy she and her husband would suffer aside, she maintains that the undercarriage of the bridge entrance has been and will continue to be a haven for crime.

She has seen people shooting up, drinking and sleeping under the bridge entrance, which is defaced with graffiti.

"It's a perfect spot for them to do stuff like that, and to tell you the truth it scares me," she says.

She views the complete removal of the bridge as an opportunity to reduce crime, and favors an alternative plan that would reconnect Morgan Oak Street with Aquamsi, which runs along the river below the bridge entrance. A lookout point off Aquamsi could still be created at a lower level of the abutment without establishing a place for crime to occur, she said.

Shirrell, who is president of the Greater Cape Girardeau Historical Society and of the Downtown Neighborhood Association, says she realizes the bridge is historic. But she thinks the city would pay too heavy a toll in liability and maintenance by pursuing the lookout plan. And crime, she says, damages the city's historic resources.

"I want this neighborhood restored as an historical area," she said.