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Source: Cecil Whig, August 7, 1991 - 150th Anniversary Issue
July 28, 1942
Tanker Crash, new bridge changed Chesapeake City forever
A tanker which destroyed the Chesapeake City Bridge on July 28, 1942 changed
the town forever.
Chesapeake City was adjusting to rationing and supporting the war effort, when
at noon, the tanker Franz Klassen crashed into an abutment of the bridge.
According to the July 30, 1942 Cecil Whig: The empty tanker
(500 feet long and 70 feet wide, believed to be the second largest in service)
bound for Baltimore, bottlenecked at the Chesapeake and Delaware Canal ...
crashed into the south abutment, totally wrecking the lift bridge at that point.
The steel structure collapsed over the bow of the ship and hung there like a twisted dish rag. The bridge was a total wreck including both sides of the canal.
"I was on the south side at the post office when the tanker hit," Kathryn Schaefer Maloney said recently. "It was a crashing sound. It definitely cut the town in two."
Before it was struck, the old bridge connected George Street on the south side with Lock Street on the north side, bringing traffic alongside Maloney's house.
"Until things got straightened out, it was very inconvenient," said Maloney, postmaster at the time. She had to go over the Summit Bridge (A one-way 12-mile trip) just to open the post office each day.
Although ferry service for pedestrians was to be established within a week, a Nov. 19, 1942 Cecil Whig article reported that vehicular ferry service was not to be established until Jan. 15, 1943.
"As it will require that length of time to dredge slips, construct landing docks and movable ramps, and to coordinate construction of approach roadway by the Maryland State Highway Commission.
Because it would require the use of strategic war materials, construction of a bridge cannot be undertaken at this time."
Construction of the bridge was delayed until 1947 and finished in 1948.
"They had to build up the area and fill in the marsh behind Bohemia Avenue, creating Ferry Lane," Walter Cooling of Chesapeake City said.
As Cooling remembers it, the ferry landing on the south side was near what is presently the Dockside Restaurant (Chesapeake Inn), while the north side landing was just west of the Presbyterian Church.
"It wasn't that inconvenient," Cooling said. "The ferry made a round trip every half hour and held 40 automobiles."
Edward Sheridan, a Cecil County resident, was one of the captains.
"The ferry service wasn't too bad," said Paul Breza, who owned a farm implement and car repair shop on the south side at the time. "You just had to depend on crossing the canal when the ferry ran. Or you could run all the way to Summit (Bridge) if you couldn't wait, but with gas rationing it wasn't always possible."
As remembered, the lack of a bridge, which had been only 250 feet long, didn't dampen the town's business center. Cooling who opened a hardware store on the south side in 1946, said he used the ferry to travel from his home on the north side.
The Aug. 12, 1943 Cecil Whig reported: "The new bridge site was fixed to leave Route 213 on the north side at the George Spear farm, cross a new bridge over a small stream then west of the St. Basil Orphanage, where it will approach the proposed bridge. On the south side the dual highway will, according to present plans, cross the properties of William M. Brown and Howard Brown and on south, several yards east of the present route."
Town commissioners reportedly protested the proposed route and urged the "War Department move the bridge further west to a point known as the 'water tower,' " claiming "the commissioners would be deprived of much tax money if the present site was finally selected."
"A lot of the towns people didn't like the proposed route," Breza said, explaining that the government owned the land west of the water tower. These protests, however, were apparently ignored.
According to the Cecil Whig, 27 properties would have to be condemned.
"The new bridge affected the south side the most," Maloney said.
It took the traffic away from Maloney's house, but through Breza's house, forcing him and his wife, Helen, to abandon their two-story home because the southside cloverleaf was to run through their home.
They moved into a three room building, which was supposed to be his new shop when he built another home, Breza said. It remained their home, however, because Breza said he "couldn't rent another place, and I wasn't in the mood to buy. I was so tied up in the state taking my house".
He eventually gave up the shop and went to work for Chrysler.
The Jan. 22, 1948 Cecil Whig reported that American Bridge Company submitted the lowest bid of $1,861,000 for the super structure of the bridge. The sub-structure was 87 percent complete at that time with work being done by Fehlhaber Pile Inc.
According to the Whig: "Using the most modern engineering concepts, the bridge would be 3,955 feet long, main spantied steel arch construction, with a clear span of 540 feet and a vertical clearance of 135 feet at mean high water."
A unique feature was its 15-foot wide single-legged approach piers supporting a 29-foot bridge deck.
Although the super structure bid was reportedly to have been completed in 480 calendar days, the actual opening day of the bridge , in 1947 or '48, was not reported in the Cecil Whig.
My Note: The Official Opening Day was September 21, 1949.
"I didn't pay much attention to it when it opened," Breza said. "I didn't do much walking across the bridge, it's pretty nearly a mile."
Asked if the bridge affected the town by re-routing traffic outside the town, Cooling said: "I suspect it was an asset. The town would never have been able to handle the traffic we have today."
Breza, whose property borders along Md. 213 agrees. "You can't even cross the highway anymore."
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