Bill Burton Fishing Pier State Park (formerly the Choptank River Fishing Pier) is a public recreation area on the

Choptank River The Choptank River is a major tributary of the Chesapeake Bay and the largest river on the Delmarva Peninsula. Running for ,U.S. Geological Survey. National Hydrography Dataset high-resolution flowline dataThe National Map, accessed April 1, 2 ...

Trappe, Maryland Trappe is a town in Talbot County, Maryland, United States. The population was 1,077 at the 2010 census. It is the site of one of the largest mixed-use developments on the U.S. East Coast called Trappe East or "Lakeside" with controversy arising ...

. The

state park State parks are parks or other protected areas managed at the sub-national level within those nations which use "Federated state, state" as a political subdivision. State parks are typically established by a state to preserve a location on accou ...

preserves portions of the former Choptank River Bridge as a pier, and includes of land upriver from the pier in Talbot County. The fishing pier was created after the Emerson C. Harrington Bridge, which had been dedicated in 1935 by

President Franklin Roosevelt Franklin Delano Roosevelt (January 30, 1882April 12, 1945), also known as FDR, was the 32nd president of the United States, serving from 1933 until his death in 1945. He is the longest-serving U.S. president, and the only one to have served ...

, was replaced with the Frederick C. Malkus Bridge in 1987. In 2011, the pier was renamed to honor Bill Burton, a long-time outdoors writer and

Chesapeake Bay The Chesapeake Bay ( ) is the largest estuary in the United States. The bay is located in the Mid-Atlantic (United States), Mid-Atlantic region and is primarily separated from the Atlantic Ocean by the Delmarva Peninsula, including parts of the Ea ...

fishing advocate, who played a significant role in preserving the old bridge as a fishing pier when the new bridge was constructed. The discovery of structural weakness below the waterline in 2022 resulted in the piers in both Dorchester and

Talbot Talbot is a dormant automobile marque introduced in 1902 by British-French company Clément-Talbot. The founders, Charles Chetwynd-Talbot, 20th Earl of Shrewsbury and Adolphe Clément-Bayard, reduced their financial interests in their Clément ...

counties being closed until further notice.

References

External links

Bill Burton Fishing Pier State Park
Maryland Department of Natural Resources
Bill Burton Fishing Pier State Park Trail Map
Maryland Department of Natural Resources {{authority control Parks in Talbot County, Maryland Parks in Dorchester County, Maryland State parks of Maryland U.S. Route 50 Protected areas established in 1987 1987 establishments in Maryland Fishing piers