Bridges
The site chosen for a bridge was only two feet deep where small boats, scows, and rafts took pedestrians across. Those more intrepid hitched up their trousers and waded. The first bridge, built for foot traffic, was in place by the mid 1860s. Boaters who couldn’t glide under reached up and shoved aside the central connecting planks, inched through, then replaced the planks. Or someone ashore, as seen here, might do the job for them. The roadway, now U. S. 31/Bridge Street, doesn’t include the bridge. The oxen approaching at left passed through the water alongside it.
The channel dredging and widening of late summer 1873 necessitated removal of the first bridge. Nine months passed before another appeared. Its roadbed stood at approximately the height of today’s bridge. On the south bank stood a tripod of logs that held a fourth, upright log capped by a pulley. The roadbed’s hinged central portion was tied to a rope that led over the pulley and down to a winch manned by six people, often recruited off their barstools from Pine River’s one saloon. Bridge number two fell apart in 1877. Digging for a new one started in March of 1878.
Several months later a brilliant red swing bridge was in place, mounted on a turntable. A giant “key” lowered into a hole in the roadbed activated the turntable’s worm-gear mechanism. By 1885, traffic going through the channel had reached astonishing proportions. In May alone that year it was reported the bridge had swung a total of 717 times. By 1900 the foundation had deteriorated from rust and rot. In February of 1901 wreckers came in and the bridge was taken apart. A few months later bridge number four was in operation.
In contrast to the delicate tracery of its predecessor, this bridge was a bold, compact network of steel girders on a concrete base. Like the third bridge it also rode on a turntable. Bridge tender Elmer Johnson, who began his thirty-three year career in 1899, was instrumental in the conversion to steam power after an exhaustive Sunday in 1901 when he worked a twenty-one hour shift turning the bridge ninety-two times with the key. The key was retired and is on display in Hoffmann Park on Park Avenue just off Bridge Street.
This bridge had not been in place very long when it was discovered that a slight oversight or miscalculation caused a serious problem. On blistering hot days the metal expanded to freeze the bridge shut. The fire department had to dip its pumps into the channel and spray each end to shrink the steel so the bridge could open. Once, the passenger liner Missouri was kept waiting for over an hour in the channel. Her furious captain lay on his horn every few minutes, as if the blast would shake the bridge loose. In the middle appear the twin peaks of Wilbur’s Dock.
Bridge number four was aging by the 1930s, but the Depression, then World War II delayed new construction. Another bridge finally began to go up in 1947. Charlevoix endured a temporary bridge across the Round Lake entry point (center distance). It floated on a pontoon out of which water was pumped so the bridge could rise, be turned by cables and winches, and resettle when water was pumped back in. This often took half an hour, causing long traffic backups. Bridge number five came out in 1949. Never has Charlevoix been so glad to see anything go.
Charlevoix’s present bascule bridge, number six, cost $986,404. After the channel was excavated and widened, followed by the erection of cofferdams for the pouring of gigantic foundations, the first steel went into place in July of 1948. Materials included 95,000 cubic yards of reinforced concrete, over 396 tons of structural steel and counterweights, and fifty more tons of machinery and fixtures. In July of 1949, the “Memorial Bridge” was “Dedicated To Those Heroes of Charlevoix Who Made the Supreme Sacrifice in World War II.”
To many, residents and visitors alike, the bridge has been the bane of Charlevoix’s existence since day one. A scene like this has been repeated thousands of times as people, oxen, horses, and vehicles of all description have stood in line on Bridge Street to wait for the bridge to close. It has been a constant round of resigned patience, fidgety frustration, profane anger, and primal scream therapy for the past 145 years. The object in the pavement at lower right is a traffic directional “button” at the Clinton Street intersection.