Carroll Avenue Bridge

Three bridges have been built across Sligo Creek at Carroll Avenue. The first, built about 1878, was a simple wooden structure located about 150 feet below the site of the present bridge. After the Seventh-day Adventist Church established a hospital and college nearby in 1904, the growing community needed a larger bridge to handle increasing traffic. Walter Douglas, engineer of the Lion Bridge on Connecticut Avenue, designed and supervised construction of a new reinforced concrete structure. The Adventist Church contributed substantially toward the $10,000 cost, and the bridge opened on July 22, 1909, with a speed limit of 8 miles per hour. That Douglas Bridge served the town until the 1930s, when population growth and rising automobile traffic demanded a larger structure. Governor Albert C. Ritchie and leading state, county, and city officials opened the three-lane steel and concrete bridge on September 14, 1932, in a gala celebration attended by over 1,000 people.

Takoma Park, Maryland · United States