On this day #1
On November 1, 1957, the Mackinac Bridge opened to traffic, joining Michigan's upper and lower peninsulas with what was then the world's longest suspension bridge between anchorages. Picture those first cars rolling out over the open water, tires humming on the deck, the late-fall wind off the lake carrying that cold, clean smell you only get up north. My uncle Walt used to say the bridge made the whole state feel like one long front porch. For everyday families, getting from one peninsula to the other stopped being a big undertaking and became something you could just decide to do on a Saturday morning. This photo comes from an earlier Michigan: university seniors in a parade on commencement day, dressed in their best and marching toward whatever came next. It's a different decade, but it's the same state and the same hopeful look of people ready to cross into something new. What does that bridge, or a bridge near your hometown, bring back for you?
Photo: Detroit Publishing Co, 1903. Wikimedia Commons, Public domain. Via Library of Congress.
Detroit Publishing Co, 1903 · Wikimedia Commons, Public domain, via Library of Congress · https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Senior_parade,_commencement_day,_University_of_Michigan.jpg
Sources:
- https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Senior_parade,_commencement_day,_University_of_Michigan.jpg
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mackinac_Bridge
