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Michigan's two peninsulas are separated by the Straits of Mackinac, four miles of swift, windswept waters that connect Lake Michigan with Lake Huron. At the Straits, Mackinaw City is at the Lower Peninsula's "tip of the mitt." The north side of the Straits is the limestone bluff a mile and a half southwest of St. Ignace. Before November, 1957, getting to the U. P. from down below took a 45-minute carferry ride, plus extra time waiting and then loading vehicles onto the ferry. Total time for the trip could be as little as an hour, but summer trips were more apt to be three or four hours. In hunting season waits of five hours, with five-mile backups, were common, and 20-hour waits were not unknown.
 | | Circling gulls mesmerized these girls. Toward dark, it’s pleasant to sit and watch the changing sky with the bridge outlined by lights. | The Mackinac Bridge turned the ferry trip into a ten-minute drive - and bestowed upon travelers a memorable landmark and experience. The bridge's completion in 1957 also kicked off a new era of Upper Peninsula tourism.
The view from the bridge is remarkable, especially coming from the north. You see Lake Michigan to the west and Lake Huron to the east. The vast expanse — water, peninsulas, and islands — is even more riveting when accented by a huge freighter passing under the bridge, 155 feet below the roadway deck. Most dramatic of all is ice-out in late March, when the broken ice forms fascinating, chunky swirls as it moves. It's a special treat to look down and see the St.; Ignace-based Coast Guard icebreaker Biscayne Bay in action.
Don't worry about safety. If you stay within the speed limit 45 mph in good weather) and obey special weather-related instructions on the lighted display board, you'll be fine. In the few cases of cars going over the guard rail and plunging into the lake, drivers were speeding. One was ruled a suicide; the other involved a tiny Yugo automobile going too fast in very bad weather.
After the Yugo incident, escorts of high-risk vehicles in bad weather were stepped up. When winds reach 65 mph, the bridge is now closed to all vehicles
Some drivers suffer from fear of heights or bridges. They can call the helpful Mackinac Bridge Authority at (906) 643-7600 for an escort, or if you are a bicyclist or pedestrian needing to be taken across the bridge ($2 each). Snowmobiles can't cross the bridge, either. Transportation for them is $10 for sled and driver.
Bridge fares were raised, for the first time ever, in 2004 - from $1.50 to $2.50 for a car or van. That provoked a surprising amount of protest, considering howif the original $1.50 fare had been adjusted for inflation, it would have been $7.50 — five times as much — in 2002. Visit www.mackinacbridge.org">www.mackinacbridge.org for fare details, history, interesting facts and figures, FAQs (the most common question is how many lives were lost during the bridge's construction), a copy of bridge designer David Steinman's poem about the bridge, and many photographs.
The Mackinac Bridge is now the third longest suspension bridge in the world. The suspension portion from anchor pier to anchor pier is 8,614 feet. Including all approach spans, the bridge is 3.64 miles long. The longest suspension bridge is in Japan, the next longest in Denmark. Both were built in 1998.
Check the bridge authority's web site (www.mackinacbridge.org) or call (906) 643-7600 for info on logistics for the Mackinac Bridge Walk each Labor Day, led by the governor. It's a five-mile walk, starting at 7 a.m. The last walkers leave at 11 a.m. Only strollers and wheelchairs are allowed - no other wheeled vehicles, and no dogs, either. Most people take two hours to do the five-mile walk. The first governor to run across the bridge was Governor Jennifer Granholm. Now there's a Bridge Run at 7 a.m., just before the walkers get started. Restrooms are only at the ends of the bridge. There's no charge for the walk, and a $2 fare for the bus trip from Mackinaw City back to St. Ignace. Check the web site for parking tips to simplify the event.
As a dramatic landmark, the bridge helps sell motels with bridge views. At night, thousands of lights outline the graceful parabolic cables suspended from the 552-foot towers. It's a grand sight - the elegant simplicity of the cables and towers, played off against the random patterns of distant car lights on the roadway. The best places to view the bridge from the U.P. side are the beautiful Bridgeview Park at the foot of Boulevard Drive, and the high platforms at Souvenir Barn and Curio Fair on West U.S. 2. Mackinaw City has several pleasant parks with bridge views. One extends east of Colonial Michilimackinac (the reconstructed 18th-century fort just west of the bridge's southern base) to the Old Mackinac Point lighthouse.
Talk about a Straits bridge first came up in the early 1880s, when three railroads joined to operate the first railroad car ferry across the Straits (1881). Completion of the Brooklyn Bridge in 1883 fueled the idea of a Straits bridge. One St. Ignace store owner printed a picture of the Brooklyn Bridge on his wrapping paper to publicize the possibility.
In 1921 the bridge engineer who promoted the Detroit-Windsor bridge proposed an island-hopping bridge route, 24 miles long, connecting Cheboygan to St. Ignace by a series of relatively short bridges via Bois Blanc, Round, and Mackinac islands. In 1934 the first bridge authority asked for federal Public Works funds for the island-hopping project, but it was rejected.
When Kimberly Nowack, chief engineer of the Mackinac Bridge Authority, gives her dramatic illustrated talk about how the bridge was built, she quickly lays out a succession of problems that had to be solved. First, a 1940 proposal for a suspension bridge with a 4,600-foot span was abandoned after the ill-starred Tacoma Narrows Bridge Disaster the same year. It involved a similar bridge by the same designer then being proposed for the Straits bridge. The bridge was destroyed and XX lives were lost in a wind of just 42 mph, not uncommon for the Straits.
Then World War II turned the nation's attention and economic resources to the war. Politicians connected to state's auto ferry service between Mackinaw City and St. Ignace hated the bridge idea and fought it at every turn. The state carferry , in place since 1921, had developed its own political constituency in the Michigan Department of Transportation, of which it was a part. In 1952 the state had heavily invested in the new 150-vehicle Vacationland carferry.
It wasn't easy to sell Michigan politicians on the idea of building an expensive bridge to a remote part of the state that meant little to most Michigan residents, who lived far to the south. Credit for reviving the bridge idea goes to three men: Former U.S. Senator Prentiss Brown of St. Ignace, a Democrat, who had pushed for the bridge throughout his long political career; Governor G. Mennen "Soapy" Williams, also a Democrat, governor from 1949 through 1961; and W. Stewart Woodfill, the energetic, political, promotion-minded owner of Mackinac Island's Grand Hotel. (So much for the notion that an elitist institution like Michigan's most famous resort has nothing to do with the common man!) Woodfill's main goal in life was insuring the survival of his Grand Hotel. Its future would depend on auto travel, he believed, and he saw a Straits bridge as a key part of auto-based tourism. Woodfill's own politics were more Republican. He was quite willing to build support wherever it might come from. (Williams and his Democrats were the ones who most wanted the bridge.) Williams had created an Inter-Peninsula Communications Commission to establish closer ties between Michigan's two peninsulas. Williams wanted to reduce Upper Peninsula residents' feeling of isolation and estrangement from the rest of the state.
Woodfill created his own citizens committee to lobby for the bridge. In Bridging the Straits, Lawrence Rubin writes that to counteract the "Democratic tinge associated with the bridge," Woodfill made sure to pack his advisory committee with "'people of unquestionable Republican faith, but who are advocates of the bridge being built.'" Woodfill and his group lobbied effectively for a new bridge authority. Woodfill himself, a fascinating snob of a personality, was a tireless advocate for the bridge. "Critical editorials and letters to editors he answered quickly, clearly, and with sound rebuttal. He traveled the roast chicken and mashed potatoes circuit diligently. He imparted irrefutable facts and figures about the proposed bridge," states Rubin. As longtime secretary of the Mackinac Bridge Authority, Rubin had witnessed Woodfill in action for many years.
Bridge-haters maintained that the bridge, expected to cost $100,000,000 in 1954, was too great a financial risk for the state to take. Thus bridge backers had to seek bonds from private lenders such as insurance companies. Much of Rubin's book is devoted to the arcane drama of financing the bridge.
Bridge haters also argued that quickly changing high winds and waves made a bridge too dangerous. Few long-span bridges had to deal with the pressure of moving ice. Foes persistently questioned whether the limestone on the two peninsulas could support a massive foundation. Also, underwater mapping disclosed a submerged valley with cliffs of braciated limestone cemented together. Could they support the foundation? Bridge foes kept circulating the doubts of one geology professor after they had been discounted by structural engineering reports.
The feasibility study of Woodfill and his group led the state legislature to authorize bonds for the project and start construction Of the three candidates for bridge designer, only David B. Steinman was willing to incur the cost of preparing plans for bidding - over $100,000 - without any assurance that the revenue bonds to pay for the bridge could actually be sold. His faith in the project gave him the job. Steinman was a brilliant designer, a prodigy who earned a PhD before he was 20. He became the nation's youngest engineering professor before goingt on to establish his structural engineering company and becoming a famous long-span bridge designer. The Mackinac Bridge project was the capstone of his career.
Steinman was an interesting person in his own right, the hero of an authenticl American immigrant success story made possible by City College in New York. Born in Belarus, he grew up poor in the Williamsburg section of Brooklyn. His childhood was spent between two great bridges, the Brooklyn Bridge and the Williamsburg Bridge. They inspired him and symbolized the connection of poor people in isolated areas like Williamsburg to a wider world. Steinman wrote books, including a biography of John Roebling, designer of the Brooklyn Bridge. Willliam Ratigan's Highways over Broad Waters: The Life and Times of David B. Steinman is unfortuntely out of print.
The aerodynamic issue in designing the bridge was huge, given the Tacoma Narrows disaster. Steinman's design for the Mackinac Bridge is very open. The roadway is made of grating, so air can flow under it. Air can also pass through the open bracing below the roadway. His design to reduce pressure from ice floes was to have a two-tiered foundation, wide at the base, but near water level much narrower. The foundation's great lower mass helped the bridge absorb pressure when a Greek freighter ran into it in 1968.
Building the bridge was the visible, dramatic part of the monumental bridge story. The project was the biggest bridge construction project ever assembled at the time. It began with the piers, constructed by sinking huge steel caissons into the mud, driving them into bedrock, and removing the mud to pour in reinforced-concrete piers. Outstanding photos by Herman Ellis document the process all along the way: constructing the towers of many cells with walls and portholes, men on high steel getting the catwalk ready to spin the main cable, then spinning the cable 24 hours a day in order to finish the suspension cables in one construction season.
The construction lights looked so beautiful that they were permanently included in the final design. The green and cream paint scheme was decided by accident, when one contractor used a black and white photo retouched for color in an advertisement. People liked it, and the rest is history. Today repainting the bridge is constant. Containment sections have to be built around each 1,800' section to protect the water, air, and passengers' vehicles from contamination. Cost: $8.2 million per section.
The Bridge Authority hired one photographer, the gifted Herman Ellis, to document the entire construction process, rather than having to orient a succession of outside news photographers to the project and the building site. Ellis is the source of footage in Mark Howell's three films about designing and building the bridge. Howells' films, "Miracle Bridge at Mackinac," "Mackinac Bridge Diary," and "Building the Mighty Mac," combine Ellis's historic footage with engaging interviews of Prentiss Brown, Larry Rubin, ironworker D. J. Stillwell, and others involved in the bridge. They can be purchased for around $25 at Book World in St. Ignace and at the Colonial Michilimackinac gift shop beneath the bridge.
Alas, in 2005 a fire destroyed ironworker J. T. Stillwell's insightful, soulful Mackinac Bridge Museum in Mackinaw City. It was a memorable shrine to the ironworkers (who donated dozens and dozens of hard hats), designers, and engineers who built the bridge.
If the Mackinac Bridge design story leaves you or your children lusting for more experiences with bridge design, you might consider purchasing Bridges: Amazing Structures to Design, Build and Test ($12.95 list, part of the Kaleidoscope Kids series).
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 | | At Bridgeview Park, off the Mackinac Bridge approach on the St. Ignace side, these girls are charmed by the circling gulls. The adjacent building has an indoor exhibit and video about the Mighty Mac’s history and construction, plus restrooms. Two gazebos allow picnics even when it’s raining. |
Fare for the I-75 Mackinac Bridge is $2.50/car or van (driver and passengers). Fares are actually figured by the axle: $1.25/axle for personal transportation, $2/axle for motorhomes, $3/axle for commercial vehicles. Bicyclists and pedestrians must request to be transported (for $2 a person) by calling the Mackinac Bridge Authority at (906) 643-7600, or stopping at the office by the St. Ignace approach to the bridge. $36 commuter books for 24 trips give frequent users a 40% savings.
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