Lions span roars into 70th year
By Margo C. Pope
Senior Writer

No celebration is planned for today, but on April 14, the St. Augustine City Commission is expected to vote again on its position on the fate of the bridge following a public hearing. In February 1996, the commission voted 3-2 in favor of a new bridge. But the commission members have since changed and the vote likely could change.

Newcomer Commissioner William J. Lennon Sr. favors a new bridge while newcomer Susan Burk favors restoration. Burk’s vote could change the city’s position because Mayor Len Weeks and Commissioner John Reardon also favor a restored bridge. Commissioner Mark Alexander favors a new bridge, and in 1996, was joined by two commissioners no longer serving: Greg Baker and Noel Helmly. In a year’s time, the position of the Florida Department of Transportation has also changed. Joseph Stephenson, regional planning administrator for the department, said the state is now leaning toward a new bridge. The U.S. Coast Guard is still deciding whether it will support a restored bridge because its requirements for the width of the draw span have changed from 90 feet, which is 14 feet wider than the bridge’s center span is, to 125 feet.

Stephenson said the transportation department is expected to make its decision by the end of the year following a public hearing.

Supporters of a restored bridge are awaiting a decision by the National Trust for Historic Preservation on its 11 Most Endangered Historic Places of 1997. The bridge is in the running for that nomination which carries with it no guarantees of protection but rather heightened public awareness. That decision will be announced on June 17.

But no thought of loss of the bridge was on anyone’s mind in 1927.

Then Record Editor Herbert Felkel hailed its completion in an editorial forecasting its benefit for years to come.

“The bridge, in constant use by thousands of people each week of the year will be a perpetual monument to the enterprise, faith and devotion of a loyal citizenry ... a great public work for generations to come.” Though the bridge’s official opening was April 7, 1927, the city commission was told in mid-February that the bridge would be ready for use as finishing touches were put on its lighting system and its new west end park. Thus the bridge opened on Feb. 26 with some fanfare after about 18 months of construction by the P.T. Cox Construction Co. of New York. According to The Record, the company had 90 to 100 workers on-site for 634 days. At 10 a.m. on Feb. 26, the bridge opened and the first car across was Eugene Segui of 60 Cordova who carried with him his three sons in their Boy Scout uniforms.

Fifteen minutes later, the first shrimp boat, Brunhilde, went through.

By April 7, local residents were familiar with the bridge and were ready to show it to the world. The celebration was marred only briefly by a rain shower but it came midway through the city’s annual spring event, the Ponce de Leon Celebration, forerunner of the modern St. Augustine Easter Festival. The 4 p.m. opening time on April 7 was preceded by the dedication of its west bank park. Bishop Patrick Barry, bishop of the Roman Catholic Diocese of St. Augustine, dedicated the park as Plaza de la Menendez. The name had been given the park by the city commission in honor of the city’s founder, Don Pedro Menendez de Aviles. In 1986, after the donation of two arbors on either side of the west bank, the commission renamed the park after Clarissa Anderson Gibbs, the daughter of Dr. Andrew Anderson. She donated the funds to create the two arbors.

On that day, Miss Jean Rodenbaugh, daughter of H.N. Rodenbaugh, vice president of the Florida East Coast Railway, cut the ribbon. The 10-year-old girl was recognized as the bridge’s patron. Her honor was due to the fact that her father had personally overseen the design of the bridge with its distinctive Mediterranean Revival towers.

On Feb. 27, The Record recognized H.N. Rodenbaugh as the civic leader who brought about the successful conclusion of a community’s dream. “It was his initiative that fanned the flame of enthusiasm that resulted in the bond issue which financed the bridge. He headed the election committee.”

The bridge was hailed as a million-dollar bridge, but in reality, the massive concrete and steel structure cost slightly more than the $611,000 included in a bond issue. But the million-dollar label stuck because it was the centerpiece of a bond issue that also built the city’s waterworks system for $415,000 and provided $48,000 to cancel previous existing waterworks bonds. That vote on Feb. 10, 1925 was 9 to 1 in favor of the bonds.

When the bridge was opened, it changed the focal point of the downtown’s bayfront. The old wooden trolley bridge, built by the county commission decades earlier, aligned with the site of the present Bayfront Golf and the St. Augustine Municipal Marina. The east-west street link at that point was present-day King Street. The new bridge’s approach aligned with Cathedral Place on the east side of the Plaza de la Constitucion. The new bridge was not called the Bridge of Lions until 1928. Its original name was simply, the Matanzas River Bridge. The lions name came from the donation of two marble lions by Dr. Anderson, longtime city benefactor. Once sculptor F. Romanelli’s lions were in place, the Lions bridge name became obvious. While its being a toll bridge was not unique, it was to be the only publicly owned bridge of the three in St. Johns County that carried motorists from Jacksonville Beach southward along the state's Atlantic Coast. The North River Bridge, predecessor to the Vilano Beach Bridge, was privately owned as was the Matanzas Inlet Bridge south toward Marineland. The three formed Ocean Boulevard, billed as the scenic highway along the state’s Atlantic Coast. On the official opening day, the two private bridges and the new bridge were free and The Record reported many took advantage of the freebies to make the trip connecting the coastal communities. The bridge’s impact on the community was summed up in a senior history seminar paper by then Flagler College student Robert M. McDaniel. He wrote the bridge's story for a class by Thomas Graham, St. Augustine historian and Flagler professor.

“The timing of the bridge and its eventual value should not be underestimated,” he said. “For if the bridge had not been built in the 1920s, it surely would not have been built in the ‘30s (the Depression era) and probably not in the ‘40s -- delaying the development of Anastasia Island and the growth of St. Augustine by another 20 years and costing all of St. Augustine millions in lost revenues.”