Dauphin Island Bridge

The Dauphin Island Bridge, formally the Gordon Persons Bridge, carries a 3mi, two-lane section of Alabama State Route 193 from mainland Mobile County, Alabama across the Gulf Intracoastal Waterway to Dauphin Island. The natural channel followed by the Gulf Intracoastal Waterway at this location is Pass Aux Herons. The bridge separates the Mississippi Sound on the west from Mobile Bay on the east. It was named in honor of Seth Gordon Persons, the 46th governor of Alabama.HistoryThe original bridge opened on July 2, 1955. It was destroyed by Hurricane Frederic in 1979 and was replaced by a fixed precast concrete segmental bridge in 1982. The central main span was the first use of a 400ft span on a precast concrete segmental bridge.On January 7, 2008, Lam Luong tossed four children, including three of his own, to their deaths off of the bridge. In March 2009, a jury in Mobile County convicted him of capital murder for the act. He was sentenced to death on April 30, 2009.