Mile 51.5 - Cape Girardeau (Bill Emerson) Memorial Bridge

John Ruskey

20 Apr 2026 � 1 min read

51.5 Cape Girardeau (Bill Emerson) Memorial Bridge

This elegant cable-stay bridge heralds your arrival into the Cape City. The towers and the slicing geometry of cables become visible far upstream and can still be seen far downstream. Cape Girardeau was once known as the “City of Roses” for the nine-mile stretch of highway lined by colorful, aromatic rosebushes. Alas, the beautiful roses were all chopped to make way for a highway expansion. Which brings to mind the Joni Mitchell song, “They cut all the trees and put them in a tree museum; and they charged all the people a dollar and a half to see’um. Don’t it always seem to go, that you don’t know what you’ve got ‘til its gone? They paved Paradise and they put up a parking lot.”

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