On Thanksgiving Day, November 27, 1924, the Bear Mountain Bridge officially opened to the general public and had the very first cars drive across the span. 100 years later, the day before Thanksgiving, November 27, 2024, the Bear Mountain Bridge officially celebrates her 100th Birthday.
Throughout the past year, the New York State Bridge Authority (NYSBA), local clubs, organizations and museums in Peekskill and Cortlandt have held various events leading up to the bridge’s Centennial. The celebration concludes on Sunday, November 24, 2024 with two historic events.
Centennial Motorcade
Beginning at 10:00 a.m. on Sunday, November 24th, the NYSBA will host a Centennial Motorcade that will cross the bridge as part of the ceremony. Over 100 vehicles, 10 from each decade the bridge has stood, from 1920 to 2024, will cross over the bridge’s span one more time. The NYSBA has not released the list of cars that will be crossing the bridge yet, but the hope is to showcase all of the cars that have crossed the bridge throughout her lifetime including Ford Model T’s, 1930’s Cadillacs, 1950’s Chevrolet Bel Air’s, 1960’s Mustangs, muscle cars, convertibles, trucks, motorcycles, and everything in between up to today’s modern cars.
Bear Mountain Bridge: The First 100 Years premieres at Paramount
At 3:00 p.m. the world premiere of the documentary, Bear Mountain Bridge: The First 100 Years will debut at the historic Paramount Hudson Valley.
This documentary film, over two years in the making, is produced by Historic Bridges of the Hudson Valley with SDS Imagery and Tesseract Studios. The film tells the story of the bridge from the idea, to construction, the building of the original Toll House and Bear Mountain Bridge Road, to the very first vehicular crossing of the Hudson River, south of Albany. The documentary film contains many historic photos, videos, never before seen footage, and stunning aerial film footage of what many believe is one of the most beautiful bridges in our area.
Bear Mountain Bridge: The First 100 Years celebrates the creation, the construction, and the operation, care and maintenance of this iconic structure that has enabled the Bear Mountain Bridge to be ready to enter its next hundred years of service. Throughout the film, experts and historians speak to the innovations the Bear Mountain Bridge used during its construction and believe that the bridge engineering pioneered a spur and boom in bridge building in New York State and the entire country in the years following.
Following the film, stay for a while and enjoy a Q&A with a panel of Bear Mountain Bridge experts who will provide even more information about this incredible structure. Tickets can be found using this link or visiting the Paramount Hudson Valley website. The film is on of such high quality and standards that viewers will believe they are watching a documentary on the History Channel, PBS, or streaming services such as Netflix or Apple TV. The hope is that the film will get picked up by one of them in the near future.
The Bear Mountain Bridge: A brief History
The Bear Mountain Bridge was originally conceived of and built as a private venture by the Harriman family. After the New York State legislative act in 1922, the Bear Mountain Hudson River Bridge Company was created. The bridge itself was built at a cost of $2.275 million dollars. In addition to the bridge, the Bear Mountain Hudson River Bridge Company also constructed Bear Mountain Road (known locally as the Goat Trail) as a vehicular connection to the Bridge. Both the bridge and the road employed many local residents from Peekskill and Cortlandt.
The Bear Mountain Bridge was dedicated on November 26, 1924, and opened to the general public a day later on Thanksgiving Day, November 27, 1924. It was a groundbreaking engineering achievement for its time, being the first vehicular bridge over the Hudson River south of Albany and the first suspension bridge with a concrete deck. For a brief period, it also held the title of “bridge with the longest suspended central span in the world.”
Bear Mountain Bridge Road and the bridge were privately owned and tolls were collected for both. Tolls for the road were collected at the Bear Mountain Road Toll House, a one-story Tudor-style house. The Toll House was not only used for the toll collection, but also housed an office, and was the home of the toll collector and his family. The original Toll House still exists today, but has been converted into a Information Center where local historian, Frank Goderre welcomes visitors from all over the world every weekend from June through October, from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m., There he expands their knowledge of the Bear Mountain Bridge, the Toll House, and the Hudson Valley, by inviting visitors to step inside and take a short tour.
The bridge and road were privately owned until 1940. In September of that year, the Bear Mountain Bridge and Bear Mountain Bridge Road were sold to the State of New York. The New York State Bridge Authority (NYSBA) acquired the bridge, making it NYSBA’s southernmost bridge. New York State took over the road.
About the New York State Bridge Authority
The New York State Bridge Authority operates the Bear Mountain, Newburgh-Beacon, Mid-Hudson, Kingston-Rhinecliff and Rip Van Winkle Bridges. It also owns and maintains the structure of the Walkway Over the Hudson pedestrian bridge. The Authority receives no operating funding through state or federal tax dollars, with nearly all of its revenue coming through tolls. Tolls are reinvested back into capital improvements on the Authority’s spans, ensuring these critical pieces of infrastructure can continue serving the Hudson Valley for decades to come.
Don’t forget to tell everyone at the Motorcade and at Bear Mountain: The First 100 Years premiere, that you read about it in the Peekskill Herald.
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