Interstate 72
Interstate Highway Missouri and Illinois in the United States
Interstate 72 (I-72) is an Interstate Highway in the Midwestern United States. Its western terminus is in Hannibal, Missouri, at an interchange with U.S. Route 61 (US 61); its eastern terminus is at University Avenue and Church Street in Champaign, Illinois. The route runs through the major cities of Decatur, Illinois, and Springfield, Illinois. In 2006, the Illinois General Assembly dedicated all of I-72 as Purple Heart Memorial Highway. The stretch between Springfield and Decatur is also called Penny Severns Memorial Expressway, and the section between mile 35 and the Mississippi River is known as the Free Frank McWorter Historic Highway.
Route description
Missouri
I-72 runs for just over two miles (3.2 km) in the state of Missouri. Its western terminus is an interchange with US 61 to the Mark Twain Memorial Bridge over the Mississippi River. This bridge connects the city of Hannibal with Illinois. Presently, there are only two exits for I-72 in Missouri, only one of which is numbered
Illinois
I-72 parallels the old Wabash Railroad from Hannibal, east through Illinois to Champaign, Illinois. The Norfolk Southern Railway operates this railroad route today.
“Interstate 72” enters the record as interstate Highway Missouri and Illinois in the United States. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Interstate, Highway and Missouri can confirm, complicate or overturn.
Why this record matters
“Interstate 72” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, Interstate, Highway and Missouri provides the most credible route into that argument.
Named sources, stable identifiers and responsible institutions provide the strongest route from overview to verifiable evidence. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jul 11, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q94648. Authority coordinates are 39.752, -89.798. 2 of 2 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 2006.
A concise general-reference account can conceal disagreements about scope, terminology or the weight assigned to individual sources. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
How to read it
Use the entry as an orientation point, then follow its citations and revision history. Names, dates and institutional relationships should be checked against the original record.
- Subject orientation
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- Locating named sources
The closest primary source, responsible institution and strongest cited specialist reference.
Three-step research path
- Establish the record: confirm the title “Interstate 72”, its source revision and the description used here.
- Expand the search: follow Interstate 72 primary sources, Interstate 72 archive and Interstate research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
- Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.
Questions for further research
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This entry incorporates text from “Interstate 72” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.