Connecting Toledo with East Toledo via Cherry/Main Streets.
The Martin Luther King Memorial Bridge (formerly Cherry Street Bridge) is a double-leaf bascule bridge located where Cherry Street crosses the Maumee River to become Main Street on the east side of the city. This is the third bridge erected at this location.
Original designs called for the control houses to be constructed as very tall towers that would be illuminated and used for navigation but due to funding constraints the towers were not added.
Designed by Arnold W Brunne and constructed by Osborne Engineering of Cleveland, Ohio, at a cost of over $1 million, construction began in 1910 and the bridge was opened to traffic in 1914 with an original deck of open metal mesh. Early designs called for the control houses to be constructed as very tall towers that would be illuminated and used for navigation but due to funding constraints the towers were not added. When it opened, streetcars shared the bridge with cars and trucks. The solution used to keep the streetcar's power wire taut when in use, but allowing the bridge to be raised, was very innovative and copied in similar bridges.
