Chesapeake City Bridge

The Chesapeake City Bridge was constructed by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers from 1948 to 1949 and is a steel tied arch bridge. It is the only bridge over the Chesapeake and Delaware Canal within Maryland, and one of the five vehicular bridges that cross the canal (the other 4 are in Delaware).

The original bridge at this site was a wooden swing bridge that was built as part of the original canal. As the canal was expanded in the 1920’s a replacement was needed, and a Pratt through truss vertical lift bridge was built from 1924 to 1926. This bridge was destroyed on July 28, 1942, after being struck by the Frank Klassen, which was an empty oil tanker being escorted by three tugboats. A ferry service was put into place while a new bridge was designed and built. It was decided that a high-level bridge, similar to the nearby St Georges Bridge which opened earlier that year. This would eliminate the need for a moveable bridge and place the piers well outside the shipping channel. The new bridge was dedicated on September 21, 1949, and featured a main span of 585-feet and a vertical clearance of 135-feet for vessels.

The bridge was refurbished in 1978 and again in 2022. The scope of the 1978 project is unclear, but the 2022 project included repairs of the bridge superstructure steel and expansion joints, and painting of the main span steel.

The idea for a canal across the Delmarva Peninsula began with a survey of possible routes in 1764, and construction started soon after. However, construction was halted in 1806 over a lack of funds. The project recommenced in 1822 with additional surveys to gain a more complete view of the project, construction resumed in 1824, and the canal opened in 1829. The canal was 14 miles long, with a uniform depth of 10 feet and width of 66 feet. As vessels became larger and deeper, they could no longer pass through the canal and locks, and the traffic in the canal began to decline. This was intensified by the construction of the New Castle & Frenchtown Railroad.

In 1906, President Theodore Roosevelt appointed a commission to study the feasibility of enlarging the canal. The canal was acquired by the federal government, and construction began in the 1920’s. This project removed all the locks, replaced all the bridges over the canal, and enlarged the canal to have a depth of 12 feet and a width of 90 feet. The new canal opened in May of 1927.

The canal was enlarged again from 1935 to 1938 as the size of the ships continued to increase. The new canal was 27 feet deep and 250 feet wide. The canal traffic soon outpaced the canal's capacity, leading to accidents and one-way traffic restrictions. Eight ships collided with bridges between 1938 and 1950 (including the original bridge at this location), resulting in catastrophic failures and fatalities. The canal was widened for a final time from 1962 to 1968 to 35 feet deep and 450 feet wide.