The current Ocean Avenue Bridge was built in 2001 in Boynton Beach. The first span was built in 1911. Photo by Tim Stepien
By Tim O’Meilia
Perhaps it was the drowning of a 19-year-old girl in 1909 as she tried to ferry across what was called the Inland Canal that spurred the construction of the first Ocean Avenue bridge linking what it now Ocean Ridge and Boynton Beach.
More likely it was tourism — ignited by Henry Flagler’s railroad and Maj. Nathan S. Boynton’s oceanfront hotel — that prompted the building of a wooden swing bridge in 1911 so Midwest visitors could more easily reach the beach from the train station.
That one-lane wooden bridge, barely wide enough for a horse and carriage, lasted 25 years until a more modern, Depression-era concrete two-lane drawbridge was finished in late 1936 at the cost of $75,000.
The political dispute over where a third and final version of the bridge would be built rattled on for nearly a quarter century before a higher span was completed in 2001 at the Ocean Avenue site of the original ferry.
But those early years are the most fascinating. Histories compiled by the Boynton Beach Historical Society, Ocean Ridge historian Gail Adams Aaskov and Boynton Beach Library archivist Janet DeVries tell the story of the early days of Ocean Ridge and Boynton Beach.
The Ocean Avenue bridge was a key piece of that story. Boynton, a Michigan soldier, politician and businessman, bought land in the mid-1890s. Taking a cue from Flagler, he built a seaside hotel in 1897, just south of where the bridge is today.
A year earlier, Flagler’s Florida East Coast Railway reached the area. Boynton’s five-story hotel had 45 rooms, a wraparound porch and several cottages to attract the area’s first snowbirds from the Midwest.
The only way from the train station to the hotel was a small flat-bottomed dredge called a lighter. Ladies wearing long dresses and holding parasols and gentlemen in their vested suits stood on it and pulled themselves across by a chain that stretched across the narrow East Coast Canal.
An Oct. 25, 1909, story in The Palm Beach Post tells the tragic tale of two Indiana sisters and their German shepherd jumping onto the lighter.
“All went well until the dog started towards the end of the barge where the unfortunate young woman was busy pulling across. As the dog neared her, the barge listed, and suddenly, the three were thrown into the canal,” the article said.
One sister swam to safety but 19-year-old Sofrona Austin drowned. The fate of the dog went untold.
The swing bridge was completed in 1911 and served as more than just a more convenient way to reach the hotel. It became a money-maker for the Florida Coast Line Canal Co., which collected a toll from vessels navigating up and down the canal.
Bridge tenders collected the tolls, lowered a chain across the canal and opened the span by walking in a circle while pushing a wrench-like crank around the foundation set in the middle of the canal. Tenders lived in a small house where the Banana Boat sits today.
As the federal government started to connect the lagoons and canals along the coast to form the Intracoastal Waterway, the dismantling of the swing bridge was ordered in the early 1930s. But local residents demanded a new bridge in its place.
The second Ocean Avenue bridge — a bascule bridge — was the first of a series of Palm Beach County projects built by the federal Public Works Administration during the Depression, according to a 1937 story in The Palm Beach Post-Times. The county contributed $33,750 toward the two-year project. The bridge opened in the winter of 1936.
In 1976, state road engineers labeled the bridge “functionally obsolete” and so began three decades of bickering over where a new, higher, wider bridge should be built.
Boynton Beach officials wanted the new span built one block north at Boynton Beach Boulevard, hoping to rejuvenate a flagging downtown. Ocean Ridge residents objected to losing homeowners’ property and preferred a smaller bridge. An Ocean Ridge doctor sued to keep the bridge out of his backyard.
By 1990, all sides agreed that the boulevard would be the spot. But environmentalists waded into the fray, literally, claiming protected mangroves would be destroyed. State environmental officials agreed, refusing to issue a permit in 1994.
Back the plans went to Ocean Avenue. This time Ocean Ridge wanted to declare the 1936 version a historic landmark to prevent its demolition. Coastal Towers residents didn’t want to lose their view. Banana Boat owners didn’t want to lose their entrances.
Never mind that repeated mechanical breakdowns forced its frequent closing, backing traffic up on the Woolbright Road bridge. As the bridge deteriorated, firetrucks and ambulances were banned and heavy trucks were forbidden to use the bridge.
A $24.5 million plan for an 11-foot taller, 45-foot wider Ocean Avenue bridge was approved finally in 1996 but construction did not begin until late 1998.
Some called it neoclassical, with its decorative arches, rounded piers, open railings and four towers. Others labeled it “Disney-esque” for its turquoise handrails, street lighting and decorative ironwork of leaping fish.
It opened in March 2001 — seven months late.
Said one observer: “It’s like a fairyland.”
Decorative grillwork with a nautical theme decorates the pedestrian walkways across the Ocean Avenue bridge in Boynton Beach. Photo by Tim Stepien
Comments
To Mr. O'Meilia: I would like to congratulate you for your interesting article on the Ocean Avenue Bridge; and, since I was "the doctor that sued", please allow me to add a few historical details. The smart road engineers, who in 1976 labeled the historic structure as "functionally obsolete", never admitted that they were contributing to the creation of a new monster version of approximately $200 million, now in the infamous taxpayer's archives under the tag of "bridges to nowhere". The majority of Ocean Ridge residents opposed the new bridge that was set to destroy Coconut Lane, where my old historic house stood, push away the Ocean Ridge City Hall, massacre eight acres of pristine mangroves, and forcibly empty its projected four lanes of traffic into the two lane scenic A1A. However, political indecisions wasted critical time to oppose it technically and this is when I decided to oppose it on my own and file suit against the Florida Department of Transportation. The Town of Ocean Ridge and the Audubon Society joined me later on and several dozen of local volunteers and residents helped with the environmental research and political activism. Mr. Hugh McMillan was our leading attorney. Several years later, the case petition finally reached the Florida Supreme Court, where common sense prevailed and the people won. This victory by the people shall prevail and prevent abusive behavior on the part of bigger towns against communities like beautiful Ocean Ridge. Sincerely, Augusto Lopez-Torre, MD FACP
That is the least-tacky photo of that bridge ever taken. It's beautiful to me because the fish are not subsumed by the, ahem, unique paint color.