GREY’S POINT—In the 1930s, the need for the bridge over the lower part of the Rappahannock River came to the forefront as roads improved and cars took the place of boats as the primary means of transportation.

By 1938, residents and officials in Lancaster County were lobbying with the State Highway Department for the necessary money to build a bridge to service the lower end of the Northern Neck.

One of the proponents was G.W. Cutler, who is credited with being the first person to suggest a bridge be built. Cutler and others formed the Lower Rappahannock Bridge Association to promote the idea of the structure. He and others worked diligently, writing over 300 letters to state officials in support of a bridge.

Sen. Robert O. Norris introduced a bill in the Virginia Senate and Del. W. Tayloe Murphy Jr. introduced a bill in the House of Delegates providing for a bond issue for the construction of a bridge across the lower Rappahannock.

The Northern Neck delegates had participated in the Weaver Highway Study Commission that included the possibility of building a bridge across the Rappahannock.

The York River bridge was the number one project on the Weaver Highway Study Commission list and recommended for immediate attention.

Success came in 1940, when the General Assembly voted to include the proposed Rappahannock River bridge in a revenue bond act. At the time, its estimated cost was $3 million.

In the 1940s act, the total bond was for $25 million and this included funds for the lower York River bridge, lower Rappahannock River bridge and a bridge tunnel across Hampton Roads.

After World War II, work began on the bridge tunnel and the York River bridge. The Coleman Bridge over the York River opened in June 1952. The Twigg Bridge over the Piankatank River was also completed in 1952.

In 1946, a public hearing was held in White Stone. At that hearing representative groups of people from all over Tidewater appeared in the interest of the bridge. It was also learned that the number one priority, the York River bridge, was going to be successfully financed.

The Rappahannock River bridge had been stalled because no project could begin in the Tidewater region until the York River project was successfully financed, and the Department of Interior and the Navy had reached a decision regarding the Naval Mine Depot near the York River bridge site.

Planning work began on the Robert O. Norris Jr. Bridge in 1950 with engineering studies of the river bottom. Construction began in November 1954 and the cost of the project eventually reached $15 million.

The bridge is 9,985 feet long and rises 110 feet above the river channel. It took 12,855 tons of structural steel, 363 tons of reinforced steel, 480,200 bags of cement, 78,400 tons of gravel, and 50,150 tons of sand.

Once opened, the bridge replaced a state-operated ferry service between White Stone in Lancaster County and Grey’s Point in Middlesex County. The 30-car ferry “Virginia,” and its 24-car backup “York,” had been doing a booming business. In 1955, two years before the bridge opened, the ferries averaged 827 cars a day.

The ferry service that was replaced by the new bridge started service in 1922, and the state took it over in 1941.

A ferry across the Rappahannock dated back to Colonial times when a major ferry operated between Senora in the Ottoman area and Middlesex County.

August 30, 1957, was the beginning of a new era, but it was also the end of an earlier era—ferry boat rides across the river. John M. Bareford of Saluda was on the Middlesex Bridge Committee along with Horace Norton of Deltaville and Lewis Jones Jr. of Urbanna. “I loved the old ferries,” said Bareford in a 1987 interview. “On Sunday afternoon when my children were small we would take them over on the ferry and ride around White Stone and Kilmarnock, but we all realized the bridge was the best thing for people on both sides of the river.”

The day the bridge opened 5,579 vehicles crossed it. When the toll booths opened the next morning, an unidentified man in a pickup arrived early in the morning and waited for the toll booth to open so he could be the first to cross and pay the toll.

Traffic on the bridge leveled off at 1,024 cars per day in 1957. State highway figures show that by 1965 the count had risen to 1,275, and by 1970 the daily count was 1,660.

The tolls were dropped in June 1976. By 1978, the average daily traffic was 2,560. In the 1980s, it jumped to around 5,000 vehicles, and now nearly 7,000 vehicles cross the bridge on a daily basis.

“We really didn’t know what impact the bridge would have on us back then,” said Norton Hurd of Deltaville, who was the president of the Middlesex Chamber of Commerce. “The bridge probably helped Kilmarnock better than this side, but it did bring the communities closer together. We didn’t know anybody over there and the only time I ever went to Lancaster was to play in a baseball game.

“We were close together but really far apart,” continued Hurd. “The bridge connected us and has made it better for everyone. People on the Northern Neck now come over here to shop and eat, while we go over there to do the same.”

Another positive aspect is that the bridge brought employment to many people. Several made careers working for Diamond Construction Company, the builder of the bridge, after the project was completed.

“For many, jobs were scarce,” said Bareford. “Several men in the county worked the bridge project until it was over and went on to retire from Diamond.”

Jim Harris of Hartfield, who worked on the bridge from October 1955 until it was completed, said there were 50 people working in foundation work, 35 iron workers, 12 painters, 10 deck re-bar workers, and 20 concrete workers.

“There was a total of 150 people working on the bridge throughout the entire process,” he said. “It was great for me. It was just a few miles from home and good money for the times.”

Harris said he made $1.75 an hour. “That was good money in those days,” he said. “Most folks were working for around a dollar an hour.”

During the dedication of the bridge, workmen were still painting the sides of the bridge. “People were walking all over the bridge that day and I was painting,” said Harris. “I was painting the side rail on the outside of the bridge. There are scuffer holes for water to run off the bridge near the bottom of the sides, and I had my hand through the hole as people came by walking. They saw my hand and didn’t see me. I heard them say, look there’s a man’s hand. I wonder if it was one of those men that got killed. He walked over and stepped on my hand. I said, ‘Get your damn foot off my hand.’ I scared that fool to death.