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Illinois set to name I-280 bridge after Vietnam War hero

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By Mike Riopell | Friday, May 02, 2008 |

Local vets have been working for a year to name the I-280 bridge after John F. Baker Jr., seen here holding his Medal of Honor. (Times file photo) Buy this Photo

SPRINGFIELD — A Quad-City native who earned the Medal of Honor for carrying fellow wounded soldiers to safety during a Vietnam War battle will make sure to cross the Interstate 280 bridge on the next visit to his birthplace.

John F. Baker Jr.’s name may be posted somewhere on the bridge.

The Illinois House has approved naming the bridge for Baker, who served 24 years in the U.S. Army, and state Sen. Mike Jacobs said the Senate is likely to do the same soon.

“It’s real nice what they’re doing,” Baker said. “Usually, Medal of Honor recipients don’t have things named after them while they’re still alive.”

He earned the nation’s highest military honor in 1966.

Local Vietnam War veterans have worked for a year to name the bridge linking Illinois and Iowa for Baker, who was born in Davenport and spent many of his years across the river in Moline. He has since retired and lives in South Carolina.

Ray Hamilton, president of the Vietnam Veterans of America Chapter 299, said Baker’s Medal of Honor is the only one, to his knowledge, ever awarded to a Quad-City native.

Hamilton helped drive the renaming effort and said Baker’s ties to both Davenport and Moline make the bridge an appropriate way to honor him.

“It kind of joins both communities,” Hamilton said.

If lawmakers are successfully able to rename the bridge, the state will hang signs on at least the Illinois side, a state spokesman said.

If that happens, Baker said, he’ll look forward to making the trip back to the Quad-Cities. But for now, he’s staying out of the effort to name the bridge.

“I’m just enjoying my retirement,” Baker said.

Mike Riopell can be contacted at (217) 789-0865 or mike.riopell@lee.net.