EARLY DANBURY-MARBLEHEAD PENINSULA TRANSPORTATION - Lorrie Halblaub
Automobiles
The Marblehead Peninsula is a place that is geographically challenged. In most towns, if you want to drive a car north, south, east or west, you just head out on a road goes in that direction. On the peninsula, you cannot do that because it is surrounded by water on three sides. In the early 1900’s on the Marblehead Peninsula, to head in any other direction by car besides west, one had to first drive miles and miles west around Sandusky Bay via Port Clinton and Fremont.
Then on February 2, 1929 something happened that allowed cars on the peninsula to be able to drive south after just a few miles. It was the building of the Sandusky Bay Bridge. The Bridge connected the town of Bay View in Erie County to the south with the area of Danbury in Ottawa County to the north. This date marked the first time an automobile or truck could cross the Sandusky Bay. Trains had been crossing the Bay on a railroad bridge since 1854.
The construction of the Sandusky Bay Bridge was authorized by acts of Congress and the Ohio Legislature. The engineers were Harrington, Howar and Ash from St. Louis, Missouri and steel work was done by Mount Vernon Bridge Company. Construction was done by the firm of A. Bently and Sons from Toledo.
At first, the bridge was a toll bridge, operated by the newly formed Sandusky Bay Bridge Company. It cost fifty cents to cross the bridge until 1936 when the State Bridge Commission of Ohio took over the operation and reduced the toll to twenty-five cents. In the photo, one can see the booth for the toll collector. To the right was the booth for the bridge operator who raised and lowered a section of the bridge to allow taller boats to pass under it. Then, in 1946, Governor Frank Lausche cut a ceremonial ribbon and the Bay Bridge was free of tolls.
In 1965, a second bridge, the Thomas A. Edison Memorial Bridge, was built on Route 2 and it crossed the bay west of the Bay Bridge. Both bridges were used until 1985 when the state of Ohio removed the center portion of the Bay Bridge and both ends became fishing piers maintained by the Department of Natural Resources. Bay Bridge was closed because of the cost of upkeep and since the Edison Bridge was tall enough for boats to pass under, there was no need to pay a lift operator.
The growth of the auto industry and the advent of the Sandusky Bay Bridge slowly changed the Village of Marblehead and the surrounding area. People loved travelling by car and the tourism industry blossomed. By the 1970’s peninsula shops that used to sell practical items like furniture, tools and work clothes started selling souvenirs, art, and clothing that advertised the area. The Village of Marblehead went from being a quarry town to a tourist destination.
