The East Bound Chesapeake Bay Bridge is opened to traffic from Sandy Point to Kent Island, a 1631 English settlement that predates Maryland. It links the state’s western and eastern shores between Anne Arundel and Queen Anne’s Counties for the first time. At 4.3 miles, it becomes the longest continuous steel structure over water in the U.S. and third largest in the world.
Ferries carry passengers across the Bay for over 200 years, attempting to make the divided state into a functioning whole. Talk of a bridge goes back to the 1880s. A serious proposal, linking west and east at the narrowest part of the bay, begins in 1938.
The first span in 1952 is followed by a west bound bridge in 1973. The busy structure has totally changed Maryland’s Eastern Shore. Queen Anne’s County is the first impacted, turning a rural community into new commuter housing settlements and strip development along an improved Rt. 50/301 that links the western shore to the Delmarva Peninsula, the Atlantic Ocean and the large eastern cities to the north.
The Kent Island town of Stevensville is home to Frank E. Petersen, Jr. (1932-2015), the first African American Marine Corps aviator and general (1952-1988)
