steelbridges

"Moonlight Over Lower Tampa Bay Showing Main Ship Channel Bridge of Sunshine Skyway, Florida"

from Florida Memory

• Florida Memory said:

  Accompanying note: "Touring the Sunshine Skyway is like going to Sea in your Automobile. Fifteen miles of sun, sea and sky and stops on the wide causeways are permitted to fish and enjoy the warm surf. The Sunshine Skyway is reached from the North by U.S. 19, from the South by U.S. 41 and is part of the new West Florida Coast Speedway."

• Florida Memory said:

  The Sunshine Skyway Bridge is a bridge connecting St. Petersburg in Pinellas County and Terra Ceia in Manatee County, Florida, passing through Hillsborough County waters. A system of five bridges with six fills, it originally opened as a steel cantilever bridge on September 7, 1954. Damaged during the worst bridge disaster in Florida history when an errant freighter ship "Summit Venture" struck a major support of the southbound lane during a storm on May 9, 1980. The main span toppled into Tampa Bay and 35 people lost their lives. Later, the bridge was replaced by a $230 million cable-stayed main span that opened in February 1987.

• F-Shades said:

  Can't imagine those poor people that drove off the opening to their deaths because that bridge is way up there.