At that time the beach town was developing so fast the ferry could not handle the traffic during the summer months, especially on weekends.

In 1953, a swing bridge started to be constructed about 1/2 mile west of the ferry landing, one which was built well enough to survive the onslaught of Hurricane Hazel.

But here again due to the large increase in both boat and vehicular traffic, this bridge was replaced by the current high rise structure on May 13, 1986.

Built by the URS Corporation located in Raleigh NC (now a part of AECOM), the three main channel spans that cross the ICW are 86, 117’ and 100’ long.

Given the narrow width of the island, the bridge had to curve to the west, otherwise the slope would have been too steep were it to intersect with the ocean front road.