The Chesapeake City Bridge carries

Maryland Route 213 Maryland Route 213 (MD 213) is a state highway located on the Maryland Eastern Shore, Eastern Shore of Maryland in the United States. The route runs from Maryland Route 662, MD 662 in Wye Mills, Maryland, Wye Mills, Queen Anne's ...

across the

Chesapeake & Delaware Canal The Chesapeake & Delaware Canal (C&D Canal) is a -long, -wide and -deep ship canal that connects the Delaware River with the Chesapeake Bay in the states of Delaware and Maryland in the United States. In the mid-17th century, mapmaker Augus ...

Chesapeake City, Maryland Chesapeake City is a town in Cecil County, Maryland, Cecil County, Maryland, United States. The population was 736 at the 2020 census. The town was originally named by Kingdom of Bohemia, Bohemian colonist Augustine Herman the Village of Bohem ...

. There are two undivided traffic lanes and one sidewalk on the east side of the bridge. The

U.S. Army Corps of Engineers The United States Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) is the military engineering branch of the United States Army. A direct reporting unit (DRU), it has three primary mission areas: Engineer Regiment, military construction, and civil wor ...

began construction on the bridge in 1948 and it was opened to traffic in 1949. An older vertical lift drawbridge was destroyed on July 28, 1942, after being struck by the tanker '' Franz Klasen''. The bridge is identical in appearance to the old St. Georges Bridge in Delaware (they were constructed roughly at the same time) except for the number of lanes.

Vertical lift span

The Chesapeake City vertical lift span was constructed between 1924 and 1928. The bridge carried U.S. Route 213, connecting George Street on the south side of the canal with Lock Street on the north. Following the destruction of the bridge,“Ship Wrecks Bridge, Blocking Off Canal at Chesapeake City.” ''Morning News''

ilmington Ilmington is a village and Civil parish#United Kingdom, civil parish about north-west of Shipston-on-Stour and south of Stratford-upon-Avon in the Cotswolds in Warwickshire, England, Warwickshire, England. The population of the civil parish ta ...

29 Jul. 1942, p. 1-11. the new high-level bridge was constructed approximately to the west. U.S. Route 213 was diverted to the new bridge, while the surface streets leading to the former bridge site were resigned as

Maryland Route 537 Maryland Route 537 (MD 537) is a collection of unsigned highway, unsigned state highways in the U.S. state of Maryland. These two existing highways and two former sections of state highway are segments of the old alignment of U.S. Route 213 (US ...

. This lift bridge itself was a replacement of an earlier wooden

swing bridge A swing bridge (or swing span bridge) is a movable bridge that can be rotated horizontally around a vertical axis. It has as its primary structural support a vertical locating pin and support ring, usually at or near to its center of gravit ...

. The replacement was necessitated by the expansion of the canal in the 1920s.

Vertical lift span

See also

References

Further reading