[8] Gerald Desmond served as City Attorney for Long Beach and played a significant role in obtaining tideland oil funds which helped finance the bridge that would later bear his name.

[9] One year after Desmond's death in January 1964, groundbreaking for the construction of the new bridge occurred on October 19, 1965, and it was completed in June 1968.

The bridge was retrofitted with vibration isolators and additional foundation work (widening footings and adding pilings) was performed to upgrade the seismic resistance from 1996–97 prior to the transfer of ownership from the Port of Long Beach to Caltrans.

[10] At the time of its completion in 1968, traffic was projected to be modest and mainly limited to workers commuting to jobs at the Long Beach Naval Shipyard.

When the Long Beach NSY was closed in 1997, that land was converted and served as home to one of the busiest container terminals in the United States, resulting in greater cargo truck and marine traffic.

The Gerald Desmond Bridge became a barrier for large ships entering the Inner Harbor at Long Beach, with its restrictive 155-foot (47 m) vertical clearance.

This restrictive vertical clearance was cited as a factor in an observed drop in the Port of Long Beach's share of United States container imports.

[14] In March 2012, the insufficient vertical clearance of the bridge prevented passage of the 12,562 TEU MSC Fabiola, the largest container ship ever to enter the Port of Long Beach.

[20] A joint venture of Parsons Transportation Group and HNTB performed preliminary engineering for the main span and the approaches.