Honoring four-time Georgia governor Eugene Talmadge, the original steel-trussed bridge of 1953–1954 was built to connect what is now U.S. 17 from Florida to South Carolina through Savannah. It had a clearance of 135 feet to allow for the growth of shipping, and was replaced when the port expanded to accommodate larger ships. The old supports are still visible on both sides of the river, concrete monuments to what was once considered a triumph of engineering and Georgia’s finest bridge. Completed in 1991, the new bridge is a cable-stay concrete suspension bridge with 417-foot-tall towers (offset above the roadbed to allow the cables to pass through the tower shafts) anchoring the 1,140-foot-long span with a clearance of 185 feet above the river that allows larger container ships to reach the expanded modern Port of Georgia upriver. While the bridge is the most prominent monument on the river, its name is a subject of ongoing debate, as Talmadge was an ardent segregationist during an era of the racially divided South.