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 Fifty years ago today, the Mackinac Bridge
was opened to automobile traffic for the first time. The 5-mile long, 4-lane, 2-tower
suspension bridge joins Michigan's upper and
lower peninsulas, and spans the Straits of Mackinac, an important shipping lane
which connects Lake Michigan and Lake Huron. Affectionately
known as "Big Mac" and "Mighty Mac", the Mackinac
Bridge connects St. Ignace with Mackinaw City,
and is one of only two tolled segments on I-75, a 1786.5-mile interstate that runs
from Hialeah, Florida
to Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan.
The 120 workers who now maintain the Mackinac
Bridge plow snow, perform
inspections and repairs, and offer a drivers' assistance program for motorists
who are too frightened to drive their own vehicles across the 26,444 feet long structure.
During the bridge's 50 year history, six workers have died and two vehicles
have fallen into the Straits of Mackinac.
Planning the Mackinac Bridge
 Planning for the Mackinac
Bridge began almost 75 years before
the Michigan
legislature and Gov. G. Mennen Williams authorized financing and construction
on April 30, 1952. During the 1880s, a group of investors led by Commodore
Cornelius Vanderbilt lobbied for a bridge across the Straits to provide better
access to Mackinac Island's Grand Hotel, a resort which Vanderbilt called "the
largest well-equipped hotel of its kind in the world". In 1920, Michigan's first state
highway commissioner proposed a floating tunnel to link the state's upper and
lower peninsulas. Competing plans envisioned a series of causeways and bridges,
but opponents objected to the project's cost. Although the state of Michigan did complete a causeway in the summer of 1941, America's entry
into World War II halted further construction efforts. The Mackinac Straights
Bridge Authority was eventually dissolved in 1947, but the efforts of Sen. Prentiss M.
Brown and Gov. G. Mennen Williams led to the creation of a new agency in 1950.
Building the Mackinac Bridge
 Construction on the Mackinac Bridge
began on May 7, 1954 and lasted over three years. David B. Steinman, a former newsboy who dreamed of building
a structure such as the Brooklyn
Bridge, was chosen as
chief designer and given a budget of nearly $100 million (USD). Merritt-Chapman
& Scott Corporation, the winner of a $25.7 million contract to build all of
the bridge's foundations, amassed the largest bridge-construction fleet ever
assembled. Armed with a $44.5 million contract, the American Bridge Division of
U.S. Steel produced bars, cables, wires and plates for the superstructure, and
caissons and cofferdams for the foundations. According to the Detroit News, building the Mackinac Bridge required 85,000 blueprints;
71,300 tons of structural steel; 466,300 cubic yards of concrete; 41,000 miles
of cable and wire; and millions of steel rivets and bolts.
More Than Money and Materials
 To build the world's longest uninterrupted crossing over
water, David B. Steinman needed more than money and materials. The 2500 engineers,
divers, laborers, and steel workers who helped build the Mackinac Bridge braved
strong winds and temperature extremes as they worked long hours without safety
harnesses or nets. Perched high above the Straits of Mackinac, bridge workers
were motivated not only by money, but by a sense of pride. "They finished a job
in four seasons that should have taken 10 years," one worker later recalled. The
bridge construction project was "the high
point in almost all of the workers' lives". Because of
the bridge builders' efforts, both of the bridge's main towers reached bedrock by early
May of 1955. Construction of the steel towers lasted from July to November, and was followed by the laying of roadway and spinning of cables.
Albert Carter's Chevrolet Styleline
 On November 1, 1957, an Illinois
jazz musician named Albert Carter became the first person to drive across the Mackinac Bridge. His car, a dark green Chevrolet
Styleline Deluxe, was also the first vehicle to travel round-trip on I-94
between Chicago and Detroit. In amassing over 300,000 miles on
his car, Carter would travel the highways of 49 states, failing to visit only Hawaii. Later, he
received permission from the U.S. Coast Guard to have his high-mileage station
wagon "buried at sea" beneath the Straits of Mackinac. Environmental groups
objected, however, so Carter donated his car to the Grand Rapids Public
Museum, where it remained
in storage for over 25 years. Today, thanks to help from classic car enthusiasts,
Albert Carter's restored Chevrolet is on display at Grand Rapids' Van Andel Museum.
Resources:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Straits_of_Mackinac
http://blog.mlive.com/michigan_travel/2007/05/first_car_to_cross_mackinac_br.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interstate_75
http://info.detnews.com/history/story/index.cfm?id=156&category=locations}}
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