The Savannah River provided Savannah with an avenue to the sea but also created a barrier to overland travel and transportation. Rochester Ferry, later named Screven's Ferry, was established in 1762 to connect Savannah with a roadway in South Carolina, and for more than 160 years this location served as Savannah's main river crossing. Ferries carried goods from South Carolina to Savannah's shipping center and provided regular service for employees working at terminals on Hutchinson Island. In the early 1900's ferry boats such as the Georgia-Carolina carried passengers and automobiles between Savannah and the Union Causeway Turnpike in South Carolina, while smaller steamboat ferries ran between Savannah's river front and Hutchinson Island, transporting workers to Seaboard Air Lines terminals where lumber, naval stores, and cotton were prepared for export. In more recent history, three bridges crossed the river at Savannah: the Seaboard Coastline Railroad Bridge, the Houlihan Bridge, and the Talmadge Bridge. The Houlihan Bridge, about six miles upriver from downtown Savannah on State Route 25, was built in 1922 and rehabilitated in 1954, and it became the first structure to provide direct overland travel between Savannah and South Carolina, reducing the local economy's dependence on boat traffic for moving people and goods from nearby towns such as Bluffton, South Carolina. The first Talmadge Bridge opened in 1954 as a 600-foot cantilever steel structure with 136-foot vertical clearance at high tide for ship traffic. In 1991, the Georgia Department of Transportation completed the current $25.7 million Talmadge Bridge, a cable-stayed structure whose roadway is suspended from two 418-foot-tall H-shaped concrete pylons and which provides 185-foot vertical clearance at high tide and 1,023-foot horizontal clearance. Its construction used balanced cantilever methods with concrete cast in place using form travelers, requiring critical wind analysis, temporary cable restraints for hurricane-force winds, and a water ballast system in 200-ton travelers that controlled bridge stress tests and construction geometry to within one inch.

Photo: Mike Stroud

Photo: Mike Stroud

Photo: Mike Stroud

Photo: Mike Stroud

Photo: Mike Stroud

Photo: Mike Stroud

Photo: Crossing the Savannah Marker

Photo: Crossing the Savannah Marker

Photo: Mike Stroud

Bluffton, South Carolina · USA