Sarah Mildred Long Bridge - History

History

Completed in 1940, the bridge is the second to carry motor vehicle traffic between Maine and New Hampshire at Portsmouth, and replaced a river crossing dating from 1822. The bridge was the direct result of the work of the Maine-New Hampshire Interstate Bridge Authority, which had been formed in 1937. The major goal of the bridge project was to relieve congestion in downtown Portsmouth and Kittery, where US 1 crossed the river via the Memorial Bridge, which had opened in 1923.

From 1960 until 1972, the bridge, along with the US 1 Bypass north of the Portsmouth Circle, filled a gap in Interstate 95, which had been designated along both the New Hampshire Turnpike and the Maine Turnpike. Although most of the Bypass is four lanes wide, the bridge itself originally had only a three-lane roadbed, with traffic on the center lane switching direction depending on load (the bridge has since been reduced to just two lanes). This, combined with being a drawbridge, placed the bridge far below Interstate highway standards. The turnpikes, and therefore I-95 in the two states, did not directly connect until the opening of the Piscataqua River Bridge and the extensions of I-95 leading to it in the early 1970s.

On April 1, 2013, a large tanker ship clipped the bridge, causing "severe structural damage" and leading to the bridge being closed to vehicular traffic. The I-95 Piscataqua River Bridge was the only Portsmouth bridge over the Piscataqua remaining open.