In the 1850s, lumber mill owner W. Kilby Reynolds, with engineer Edward
R. Serrell, succeeded in building the first suspension bridge to connect
divided Saint John. This operated as a toll crossing until 1858, when it
became a government-owned structure. From then until the present, there
have been two vehicular-pedestrian bridges and two rail bridges serving
travelers crossing Saint John Harbour at the gorge at the Reversing
Falls. By the third quarter of the 19th century, there was talk and
plans for a second bridge, one which would cross at Navy Island to the
North End. It took about 80 years before this plan came to fruition, and
the Saint John Harbour Bridge opened in 1968. Through this rich
collection of photographs, Bridging Saint John Harbour clearly shows the
importance of the varied connector bridges over Saint John Harbour and
how they came to be built.