Interstate 24 (I-24) is part of the Interstate Highway System that runs from Pulleys Mill, Illinois, to Chattanooga, Tennessee. In Kentucky, the Interstate runs in a northwest-to-southeast alignment in the western part of the state through the Jackson Purchase and Pennyroyal Plateau regions, from the Ohio River at the Illinois border to the Tennessee line near Fort Campbell and Clarksville, Tennessee. The Interstate runs for a total of in Kentucky, serving Paducah and providing access to other cities via U.S. and state routes. It also crosses the Tennessee River and Cumberland River near Land Between the Lakes National Recreation Area. Unlike many Interstate Highways, I-24 does not closely parallel any U.S. Route in Kentucky. Whitehaven, a historic house in Paducah built in 1865, is used as the western Kentucky welcome center.

When the Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1956 was passed, no Interstate Highway was allocated for western Kentucky, and the road that became I-24 was planned to run between Nashville and Chattanooga. Around this time, Kentucky officials began lobbying for an Interstate Highway in this region, and the state, along with Tennessee, Illinois, and Missouri began to advocate for a new Interstate between Nashville and St. Louis. After many years of debate, the states reached an agreement for the highway's alignment in 1963, and the following year, the federal Bureau of Public Roads approved an extension of I-24 into Kentucky. Construction on I-24 in Kentucky began in 1967 and was completed in 1980, making it the last mainline Interstate Highway in the state to be finished. In 2018, a section of I-69 was routed onto a concurrency with I-24 as part of an extension of this Interstate into Kentucky.

Route description

I-24 is maintained by the Kentucky Transportation Cabinet (KYTC), along with all other Interstate, US, and state highways in Kentucky. In 2025, annual average daily traffic counts ranged from 21,740 vehicles east of the eastern interchange with I-69 to 44,483 vehicles between US 45 and KY 1954 in Paducah.

I-24 enters the Jackson Purchase region of western Kentucky from Illinois on a north–south alignment on the Interstate 24 Ohio River Bridge across the Ohio River. This two-span bridge is a tied-arch bridge, and has a total length of . Immediately within McCracken County, the route begins gradually veering southeast and enters the western fringes of Paducah a few miles later. In Paducah, the Interstate continues to shift southeast and has an interchange with US 60. A short distance later is an interchange with US 62 and US 45, which are connected via frontage roads. This interchange also provides access to the western I-24 Kentucky welcome center at Whitehaven, which is the only historic house in the United States used as a rest area. Passing through the Hendron and Farley communities adjacent to Paducah, the highway shifts into a direct east–west alignment several miles later and crosses the Clarks River before reaching an interchange with US 68 in Reidland. The route then enters Marshall County and, about later, has an interchange with I-69 and a connector road to US 62 and Calvert City to the north. Here, it begins a concurrency with the former. The two Interstates then shift northeast and have an interchange with US 62 about later. A short distance later, the Interstates cross the Tennessee River on the Luther Draffen Bridge, which is a two-span tied-arch bridge. Here, the Interstates enter the Pennyroyal Plateau and Livingston County just north and downstream of Kentucky Dam and its Kentucky Lake impoundment. The highways then have an interchange with Kentucky Route 453 (KY 453) north of Lake City and Land Between the Lakes National Recreation Area. They then cross the Cumberland River on the Ralph Smith Bridge about later into Lyon County a few miles north of Barkley Dam and Lake Barkley.

Gradually veering eastward, the two Interstates reach KY 93/US 62/US 641 near Kuttawa and Eddyville. Less than later, I-69 splits off to the northeast at a trumpet interchange, and I-24 passes through Mineral Mound State Park, veering southeast a few miles later. Passing through a mostly wooded area, the Interstate crosses KY 93 without an interchange, and a short distance beyond has an interchange with KY 293 near the Kentucky State Penitentiary. It then crosses Eddy Creek and an inlet of Lake Barkley a few miles later. Some distance later, the freeway enters a landscape consisting mostly of farmland and dips briefly into the southern tip of Caldwell County, where it has an interchange with KY 139. The Interstate then enters Trigg County and crosses the Muddy Fork Little River a short distance later. About later, the Interstate has an interchange with US 68 and KY 80 between Cadiz and Hopkinsville. The highway then crosses into Christian County a few miles later. Passing over the next several miles through additional farmland and bypassing Hopkinsville to the southwest, the Interstate reaches the southern terminus of I-169 at a trumpet interchange. About later, the Interstate has a partial cloverleaf interchange with US 41 Alternate, which provides access to Hopkinsville to the north and Fort Campbell and Clarksville, Tennessee, to the south. I-24 then crosses into Tennessee about later.

History Predecessors, planning, and routing debate Before the advent of the automobile, several ferries operated crossings in western Kentucky across the Ohio, Tennessee, and Cumberland rivers. When the United States Numbered Highway System was established in 1926, several roads in western Kentucky were given designations. In 1929, the Brookport Bridge on US 45 was completed across the Ohio River between Paducah and Brookport, Illinois. In 1956, Congress passed the Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1956, which created and authorized federal funding for the Interstate Highway System. The highway that became Interstate 24 was authorized between Nashville and Chattanooga, as had been planned since the late 1930s. Around this time, officials in western Kentucky began advocating for an Interstate Highway here, and the state highway department began studying potential routes. In 1957, officials in Kentucky, Illinois, Missouri, and Tennessee began an effort to extend I-24 west of its allocated western terminus in Nashville to St. Louis. They argued that such a highway was needed to improve connectivity between St. Louis and Nashville, as well as between Atlanta and Chicago. The new route was also stressed because of the importance of Fort Campbell, established in 1941 as the home of the 101st Airborne Division; and the Paducah Gaseous Diffusion Plant, which was established in 1950 by the United States Atomic Energy Commission and became one of the top producers of enriched uranium during the Cold War.

The four states had difficulty reaching an agreement for the proposed routing, and spent the next several years studying different proposals. The first major concept, which evolved between 1957 and 1958, had I-24 run concurrently with I-40 west of Nashville for about to near Dickson, Tennessee, before splitting off to the northwest and crossing the Kentucky Lake impoundment of the Tennessee River a few miles before entering Kentucky, and avoiding the Cumberland River completely. From here, the route passed through Murray, Mayfield, and west of Paducah in a north–south direction. This alignment was favored by officials in Tennessee and western Kentucky, and later the Bureau of Public Roads (BPR), the predecessor agency to the Federal Highway Administration. In January 1958, the highway departments in Kentucky, Tennessee, and Illinois submitted a joint request to the BPR for this route, and their engineers recommended I-24 cross the Ohio River near Paducah and south of Metropolis, Illinois, one month later. In late 1958, a new "straight-line" route to the east was proposed that crossed the Ohio River near Salem, passed through Eddyville, Princeton, Cadiz, and Hopkinsville, and entered Tennessee near Clarksville. To the west, this route would continue straight to St. Louis. This was proposed by a group composed of delegates from cities along this route, who argued it would be more cost-effective. By 1959, proposals called for the Interstate to turn west and cross the Ohio River near Cairo, Illinois. It would then cross the Mississippi River into Missouri a short distance later and continue to St. Louis. When Henry Ward became the state highway commissioner in September 1960, additional proposals began to arise, including eastern alignments similar to the 1958 proposal. Governor Bert Combs, who once owned shares in a motel in Gilbertsville, and other state officials were also accused of trying to shift the route to the east. A toll road was also proposed between Princeton and Paducah if I-24 was not built in the area.

By 1963, two major alignments were under consideration that were combinations of previous proposals. The first was a route through Murray, Mayfield, and Paducah that mirrored the original proposal and terminated with I-57 near Pulleys Mill. The second alignment would continue northwest out of Nashville and enter Kentucky near Clarksville and Fort Campbell, pass southwest of Hopkinsville, north of the Land Between the Lakes, and south of Paducah, but cross the Ohio River near Cairo and continue to St. Louis like the original proposal. The latter alignment was favored by many officials in Tennessee and western Kentucky, but the federal government preferred the former, due to its to Fort Campbell and the Paducah enrichment plant. The states also incorporated a new Interstate Highway, which was once proposed to be named I-24W, between I-55 in Hayti, Missouri, and I-40 in Jackson, Tennessee. This included a then-unbuilt bridge across the Mississippi River that had been proposed since the 1930s.

On September 17, 1963, the governors of the four states, in a meeting with President John F. Kennedy, U.S. Secretary of Commerce Luther H. Hodges, and BPR Administrator Rex Marion Whitton, reached a compromise on the alignment for I-24's extension. This alignment largely consisted of the eastern proposal through Kentucky, but shifted to the Paducah-to-Pulleys Mill alignment instead of continuing to St. Louis. They also urged approval of the Hayti-to-Jackson Interstate, and Missouri Governor John M. Dalton said that his state would not accept the I-24 routing unless a bridge between Missouri and Tennessee was approved. However, Dalton agreed that the Cairo alignment, which would have crossed the Mississippi River approximately west of the Ohio River crossing, would have been too costly. This routing, however, became an issue in the gubernatorial election later that year, when it threatened to shift the historically-Democratic vote in the Jackson Purchase area to Republican nomineee Louie Nunn. Democrat nominee Ned Breathitt, who ultimately won, proposed an east–west toll road in the region between Fulton and Kentucky Dam as consolation. On August 18, 1964, the BPR approved the extension between Nashville and Pulleys Mill, establishing I-24 in Kentucky for the first time. They also authorized the westernmost portion of the other Interstate Highway between Missouri and Tennessee, which they designated I-155, but did not approve the entire route to Jackson. This routing remained controversial, and in 1965, a study that was ordered by Breathitt examined the feasibility of moving roughly the easternmost I-24 to run about closer to Hopkinsville. In December of that year, engineers employed on the study recommended against this, citing no cost-benefit evidence of removing the highway from the alignment approved by the BPR.

Construction