Span across river a symbol of peace
It was quite a struggle, building a bridge across the Niagara River between Buffalo and Fort Erie.
There were bridges elsewhere across the Niagara River by the mid-1800s — at Niagara Falls in 1848, at Queenston in 1850. But those were suspension bridges over the relatively narrow Niagara Gorge. A bridge for the Buffalo-Fort Erie crossing would have to be more than a mile long, supported on piers built in the swift, dangerous currents of the Niagara River.
An American inventor, Alonzo Mather, promoted the bridge idea with a passion. In 1893 he wrote a book proposing the construction of a combination hydro-generating facility and bridge linking Buffalo and Fort Erie. The hydro generating would be done by harnessing the strong, swift current of the river as it passed between the piers supporting the bridge.
The Canadian authorities liked the idea, and Mather was soon able to purchase the land needed for his project on this side of the river. Ironically, his plan was stalled by opposition from the American side, notably from hydro-generating interests further down the river who felt threatened by Mather’s plans. Mather never got anywhere with his project.
But the idea of a bridge was in the air, and when leaders on both sides of the border began to talk about co-operative ventures to mark the centenary of the War of 1812, new life was injected into the bridge idea — “How about building a bridge between Buffalo and Fort Erie? We could call it … The Peace Bridge.”
A long time passed between the hatching of that idea and its achievement. Not only did entrenched interests on both sides of the border hinder it, but the First World War complicated such an expensive, labour-intensive undertaking.
It was not until August 1925 that the International Joint Commission approved plans for the bridge. But then things moved quickly. Construction began the following week, and a year and a half later, on March 13, 1927, the bridge’s chief engineer drove the first car across the new bridge. The span, opened to the general public on June 1, was formally dedicated on Aug. 7, 1927, by representatives of the various national, provincial, state and local governments involved (including the Prince of Wales and British Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin) and some 100,000 onlookers.