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Editorial Note: This article originally appeared in The Weekly Choice on July 3, 2003.
A view from the top of the Mighty Mac, 552 feet above the Straits of Mackinac (facing north towards St. Ignace)
Towering a massive five hundred and fifty-two feet above the Straits of Mackinac, it is visible from up to twenty miles away in any given direction on a clear day and easily the most prominent milestone for vessels big and small cruising the Northern Great Lakes. Currently the largest suspension bridge in the western hemisphere, it is dwarfed only by the Akashi Kaikyo Bridge in Japan and the Great Belt Bridge in Denmark as the largest in the world. Stating that the Mackinac Bridge is just another landmark of our great state of Michigan would be the equivalent of saying that Babe Ruth was just a baseball player or that The Beatles were just a bunch of guys who liked to get together and play music from time to time, so I thought that with Independence Day in the vicinity and all, it would be a memorable idea to take a special look at exactly what makes this magnificent structure the defining landmark of the wolverine state and the center of our pride here in Northern Michigan…
Some eighty years ago, before the Mackinac Bridge was even a glimmer in the eyes of its creators (and actually only shortly after the automobile itself was even introduced), a ferry service was established to transport residents and tourists alike back and forth between Michigan’s Upper and Lower peninsulas. Despite the hour-long boat ride from Mackinaw City to St. Ignace, a trip that was even preceded during holidays and heavy tourist volumes with a wait of up to twenty-four hours long, the scenic beauties of Michigan’s backcountry were more than enough of an incentive to keep the boats packed year after year after year. The commitment by the State Highway Department to this project was most certainly a grand one by even the most modest of proposals, but over the following years it paid off in troves as passage across the Straits skyrocketed until nearing breaking one million vehicles transported during the ferries’ final year of operation.
A tanker prepares to pass underneath the bridge
The entire aspect of travel between the peninsulas changed, however, in 1950 when the Mackinac Bridge Authority was created (for a second time, I might add), to further research of the mere feasibility of a bridge or other structure to span the Straits. Lead by a new generation of innovators and industrial pioneers, the Authority impressed the politicians, bankers, and all of Northern Michigan the same by formulating and financing a revised plan for the project within only three years, and it wasn’t long before May 7, 1954 rolled along and the ground was officially broken for the construction of the Mackinac Bridge. After only three years, nine-hundred and thirty-one thousand tons of concrete, a little less than seventy-two thousand tons of steel and twelve-thousand tons of suspension cabling, and of course a meager one hundred million dollars worth of bonds to fund the entire operation, that fateful day of November 1, 1957 soon relieved the ferry lines of their primary duties and provided the rest of us with a revolutionary new method of traversing that five mile stretch of water that bisects our backyard…
And now here we are, forty-six years later since the Mackinac Bridge first opened and I still find myself gazing up with both wonder and astonishment each and every time I cross the Straits of Mackinac. I’m amazed by the sheer strength that roughly one million tons of raw materials has been able to produce, boasting a weight capacity of nearly eighty-million pounds (translated: over a thousand loaded semi-trucks could use the bridge as a gigantic parking lot at the same time without any worries…). I’m astounded by the amount of dignity and passion that everyone who works behind the scenes at the Bridge put into their jobs on a daily basis, continually monitoring traffic and weather patterns in the best interests of us commuters, constantly maintaining the structure to keep it looking its very best, and even offering to assist those travelers who may not feel as comfortable driving across the Bridge themselves. But what just blows me away time and time again is that the whole thing, from day one, has always been completely self-sufficient – that’s right, on tolls and on tolls alone do all of these things happen, along with so many more that I simply don’t have the time to list here…
During the earliest hours in the very creation of the Mackinac Bridge, designer Dr. David B. Steinman was quoted as saying, “Let it be such work that our descendants will thank us – and that men will say as they look upon the labor and raw substance: SEE THIS, our fathers did for us.” No doubt that many of you will be venturing into the Upper Peninsula at one point or another this summer, if not this very weekend in celebration of our Independence Day, and as you cross that very bridge that was constructed nearly fifty years ago – that bridge that has not only become our gateway to a boundless wilderness, but the very icon that has and will identify us to visitors and onlookers for years and years to come – I’d like to encourage everyone to take just a moment to recognize all of the glory and pride that such a landmark like that could ever possibly represent, and more importantly, just appreciate what a truly remarkable gift this is that our ancestors have given us because another fifty years down the road, it still won’t be about legislation or toll increases or any other questionable policies that shouldn’t really be that big of a deal to any of us in the first place…
…just as it is today, it will be about keeping an extraordinary landmark alive and beautiful as the pride of Northern Michigan for a new generation of residents, tourists, and onlookers from afar, just as our fathers did for us.
The Mackinac Bridge glistens in the morning sun, spanning the straits as it connects Michigan's Upper and Lower Peninsulas
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