Lake Worth Bridge (former) – Lake Worth FL

Description

Lake Worth, Florida’s old Lake Worth Bridge—which carried what is now Rt. 802 over the Lake Worth Lagoon (part of the Intracoastal Waterway)—was constructed with the assistance of federal Public Works Administration (PWA) funds. The PWA supplied a $138,000 loan and $112,909 grant for the project, whose total cost was $263,428. The draw bridge was built as a toll bridge. Construction occurred between August 1936 and December 1937. The bridge has since been demolished and replaced.

The Palm Beach Post, Aug. 30, 1936:

When workmen start in Monday morning to build a new bridge across Lake Worth, it will mark the beginning of the biggest PWA project yet started in Palm Beach County, and the construction will reward the efforts of local and county officials for the past three years. Long desired as a community project, the new bridge will replace the antiquated wooden structure which was built in 1917-18, and which has been costly to maintain in recent years, as well as being termed dangerous.

The bridge will be 1,410 feet long, with concrete approaches and reinforced spans on steel H beam piers. The roadway proper will be 20 feet wide, with two 5- foot sidewalks. The draw span will be of the double leaf bascule type, electrically operated. It will have a horizontal clearance of 80 feet between fenders, and the ver tical clearance when the draw is closed will be 17 feet above high water. The construction includes also the approaches, on the east to the Ocean Boulevard grade, and on the west to R Street. On the east will be added about 500 feet of causeway to link with the present bridges causeway, while the west end of the bridge will have a double traffic opening.

The Coastal Star:

Discussions began immediately to replace the “the old and dilapidated wooden bridge,” as it was referred to in the press, and a new concrete drawbridge was finished in 1937. It was state of the art in a time when Intracoastal Waterway bridges at Southern Boulevard, Blue Heron Boulevard and Lantana were all wooden.

Said local historian Bill McGoun, a retired editorial writer for The Palm Beach Post: “The only thing I recall about the ’37 bridge, which was the bridge when I was growing up in the ’40s and ’50s, was that it was lit by first-generation sodium-vapor lights that had the unfortunate side effect of making everything look yellow, including people.”

The bridge lasted until 1973, when a $4 million four-lane replacement was completed, its western landing just south of its 1937 ancestor. It was the tallest single-leaf bascule bridge in the state. The east and west ends of the ’37 bridge were left as fishing piers.

The bridge underwent a $4.6 million rehabilitation in 1997. Last year, the remnants of the old ’37 bridge were demolished and a new fishing pier built as part of a $2 million Snook Islands Natural Area project.

PWA Docket No. FL 4157