Construction and Opening

From 1926 to 1928, with business booming for Jordan Bros. Lumber Co., the company sought quick and easy access from its lumber in the Great Dismal Swamp to a sawmill in South Norfolk. Ferries were then the most common way to move cargo, but they proved less reliable than the brothers wanted. After a friend suggested building a bridge, the Jordan brothers formed the South Norfolk Bridge Commission. Five years of work and congressional permission were required, with Pub. Bill No. 272 passing on May 22, 1926, to finance and begin construction of the $1 million bridge in 1926. Harrington, Howard and Ash, an engineering firm in Kansas City, Missouri, won the design contract. Construction began on August 15, 1927. The bridge opened on August 24, 1928, a little more than a year later, with a barrier-cutting ceremony at which Governor Harry F. Byrd, a close friend of the Jordans, cut the symbolic ribbon and addressed the crowd. The Norfolk-Portsmouth Bridge joined two bridges crossing the Appomattox and Nansemond Rivers to form the King's Highway, connecting Richmond to the sea.

Chesapeake, Virginia · United States