The globe-independent. (Hagerstown, Md.) 1943-19??, 1952-07-31
from the Chesapeake Bay Bridge

Inc Eastern and western Shores
of Maryland, in early days joined
and in recent years separated-by
the waters Of the Bay, today are
joined once more with the opening
of the Chesapeake Bay Bridge
A dream in 1908, financial inn
possibility in 1929 and a war-post-
poned plan in 1910, the Bay Bridge
project became reality in Janu-
airy, 1949, when the first earth was
moved for the western approach. It
was November, 1949, when the first
dredge started pumping black ooze
from the bottom of the Bay to make
way for the bridge
The largest continuous entirely
over-water steel structure in the
world, the $45,000,0OO bridge now
restores between the two sections of
the State link that has not existed
since the days most Marylanders
Travelled by boat and the Chesapeake
itself was their highway.
The Bay has always dominated
Maryland life
The first settlements sprang up
beside it and along the rivers flow
ing into it. To the early colonists,
according to one historian, the
Chesapeake was their highway and
their market house"
1.-THE Bay and its estuaries," he
writes, "in fact gave the tide-water
Marylanders a facility of commune
cation with one another and with
the outside world not possessed by
any other colony on the continent"
Along with the many private boats
sailing the Bay, prior to the Revolu-
ton, legends tell of a regular ferry
running between Kent Island and
the Annapolis shore.
But as the population grew and
spread inland, the wagon road, the
railroad, and, later, the automobile
and the motor-truck gradually rele-
gated the Bay boat to obscurity-
and the Chesapeake became bar
rier rather than a bond between
eastern Maryland and the rest of
the State.
There are recurring stories that
sometime around the 1905 sketchy
studies were made Of the possibility
of building bridge across the Bay.
In 1907, Peter c. Campbell, Balti-
more businessman and State Sena-
tor, pointed out to his associates that
more and more of the Eastern Shore
trade, which had been coming by
boat to Baltimore, was going north
by. highway and railroad to Viii
mington and Philadelphia.
The Merchants and Manufacturers
Association the following year al
lotted 1000 for an engineering re-
port on the feasibility of a private
ly financed bridge, stretching be-
tween Bay Shore and Colchester, to
carry interurban trolley lines across
the Bay and down the Shore"
Talk of a double-deck structure to
carry both railroad and trolley lines
was circulating in 1919. 1t was car
ried step further in 1927 when a
group of Baltimore businessmen
were authorized to raise funds to
build Bay Bridge Fairly detailed
plans were developed but the 1929
stock market crash put an end to
this venture
In the early 1905 a number of
commissions were appointed to plan
for the bridge but all these efforts
were predicated on obtaining FEEDER
al aid, which was not forthcoming.
! Over this period, the changes first
noted in 1907 had been multiplied a
thousandfold as the automotive age
dawned. By 1919 the demand and
pressure for some sort of Bay cross
ing led to the Inauguration of reg
ular ferry service between Annapolis
i e1iiO S1o4DOAAC, q AO-l1l11S tIlD It.
quiring two hours. Aside from the
legendary colonial ferry, this was
the first regularly scheduled Bay
ferry service in the history of the
State.
The Eastern Shore terminal of this
line later was shifted to Matapeake
and still later, after the State Roads
Commission took over the ferry sys-
tenn, the Western Shore terminal was
established at Sandy Point.
An engineering report prepared
by. the ]. E. Greiner Company points
out: During the last forty years,
while the river boats have given
way to motor vehicles, it may be said
that Bay ferries have been used as
temporary expedient until the hope
of the years for a fixed Bay crossing
GOULD 10 ,.1o1;z1l