Veterans Memorial Bridge (Bay City, Michigan)

The Veterans Memorial Bridge is a drawbridge located in Bay City, Michigan. It carries State Highway M-25 over the Saginaw River. Its location is just south of Wenona Park (on the east side of the river), and Veteran's Park (on the west side).

Veterans Memorial Bridge
Coordinates43°35′46.65″N 83°53′37.02″W
Carries M-25
CrossesSaginaw River
LocaleBay City, Michigan
Official nameVeterans Memorial Bridge
Maintained byMichigan Department of Transportation
Characteristics
DesignBascule bridge
Total length916 Feet
History
Opened1957
Statistics
TollNone

History

The Veterans Memorial Bridge opened in 1957, the same year as the Mackinac Bridge. It was also Bay City's first four-lane bridge.[1] The bridge was built to carry a rerouted section of M-25 (which was also concurrent with U.S. Route 23 Business (US 23 Bus.) up until 1960) over the Saginaw River. These route designations previously crossed the river a short distance north on the Third Street Bridge.[2] Despite the reroute, the Third Street Bridge would remain in service until its collapse in 1976 and would be physically replaced by the Liberty Bridge.[3]

The Veterans Memorial Bridge was temporarily closed to road traffic on July 7, 2012, for the Bay City Fireworks Festival. Over 5,000 shells were launched from the surface of the bridge in celebration of Independence Day.[4]

gollark: Yes, I dislike it.
gollark: They have some control thing which lets you select the bucket you're in in the A/B tests they do.
gollark: For now, anyway.
gollark: I disabled that using the seeeecret experiments menu.
gollark: I agree, they sometimes make good changes somehow.

References

  1. "Bay County Historical Events Time Line". Bay Journal.
  2. "M-25". Michigan Highways. Retrieved 2 August 2016.
  3. Younkman, Tim (3 June 2011). "Bay City changed forever the day the Third Street Bridge broke". M Live. Retrieved 2 December 2015.
  4. "50th annual Bay City fireworks display goes out with a bang, wows crowd".


This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.