By Sheila Dassatt
Sometimes I’m in search of a good topic for my article when it comes time. I’m sure most writers do the same thing. Yesterday was Sunday and we were taking a scenic ride with our dog, Ruby in tow. She wanted to swim, as she is a black lab with a love of water. Mike and I didn’t really want to go that far, just let Ruby swim and enjoy the beautiful scenery. Mike has gotten back into photography, so he was taking pictures along the way.
I was looking for an inspiration, which was right in front of me! We were at the Bridge Park on the Little Deer Isle side of the Eggemoggin Reach. Either people love the bridge, which is our beautiful landmark, or they are scared to death to go over it. Most of us think it is a majestic beauty.
It occurred to me that as a child, I remember the toll on the Sedgewick side. Can you imagine if it was there now?! I can give you a little background about that. The Deer Isle-Sedgewick bridge charged a driver’s fee for 22 years after opening in 1939. Before that time, all that was there was an inconvenient and dangerous ferry. There are pictures of this ferry which amounted to a flat barge that was in tow and carried maybe one or two vehicles and a handful of passengers. Of course, if you had a boat, it made it possible, but you’d still need transportation when you got to the other side. So the bridge was a very welcome addition of transportation for the Island folks. This would take in my grandparents and my dad’s generation. “After 175 years of geographical isolation, Deer Isle today becomes a part of Maine and America. The union fulfills the dream of many men for many years.” This was summarized by Congressman Ralph Brewster.
The design was built by engineers Holton Robinson and David Steinman, featuring a slender wind-sensitive suspension design similar to the infamous Tacoma Narrows Bridge. The bridge was well known for bouncing in violent gale winds that snapped the cable stays, which prompted the designers to add an extensive web of reinforcing cable stays. The bridge was associated with “Galloping Gertie” known as the Tacoma Narrows Bridge, which collapsed in 40 mph winds on November 7, 1940.
At that point, the drivers stopped to pay a toll to cross the narrow 20 foot wide deck of the bridge. With this being said, it is still a narrow 20 foot wide deck and no room for anything other than vehicles. There is no room for bicycles or walkers on this bridge.
Most people of that era remember the distinct, eerie sensation of the span flexing, twisting and swaying during high winds and summer heat. To this day, on a windy day, locals are known to drive to the crest of the bridge and feel the sway. (I prefer not to…)
Getting back to the tolls, a round-trip toll was $2 which represented a significant portion of a paycheck. At that time, a week’s pay was around $30 a week. A $2.50 charge was for trucks, which also was a deterrent for land shipments for years. At that time, granite was still shipped by barge or schooner to Boston or New York. The same goes for the lobster smacks that transported lobsters to Boston as well.
With the toll being in place, the Island was able to take care of its own community needs, folks didn’t need to leave the island to exist. Each neighborhood had its mom and pop stores that you could walk to because there weren’t that many vehicles then. The communities themselves had clothing stores, grocery stores, variety stores and a handful of restaurants. There was a couple of filling stations and garages that fixed your vehicles. There was the Opera House movie theater and most of the school functions were done there, such as graduations. Life was good.
Looking at the bridge yesterday, I remember how my family would find things to do on the Island so they wouldn’t have to cross the bridge and pay that toll. I even remember that as a child and believe it or not, life was a lot simpler then. We would always find things to do such as picnics or rides to the smaller islands with our boats and a transport dinghy to get to the island.
In 1961, an irate crowd of islanders packed a Legislature’s Highway Committee hearing in Augusta to lobby for final removal of the tolls. A bill was passed on September 15, 1961, to remove the toll booth once and for all. Once this happened, it changed the flavor of the Island forever. There is a balance of the scales no matter what it is, such as it allowed more commercial transportation and a lot more people had access to the Island. Now most of us need to go to the mainland for most of our needs because the Island has mostly summer shops now and not much for everyday needs. The Island is still beautiful, but a lot has changed since those days. We are really trying to hang on to our traditional way of life and hope that with time marching on and society changing, that we can still enjoy the working waterfront and our traditional lobstering way of life. Please, let’s keep it that way.
