Before the bridge, the only way to cross the Saint John River was by ferry. Plans and specifications of the bridge began in 1898 and the bridge was constructed in 1901 by the Hartland Bridge Company. On May 13, 1901, Dr. Estey was the first person to cross the bridge before its scheduled opening, because he had to respond to an emergency call. Workers placed planks on the bridge so he could drive across the bridge. It was finally inaugurated by Justice McKeowan on July 4, 1901 before a crowd of 2,000 people. It was funded by tolls until it was purchased by the provincial government on May 1, 1906. The bridge was not originally built covered. A fire in 1907 burnt some of the structure and nearly destroyed the toll house. The tolls had been removed earlier that year. On April 6, 1920, two spans of the bridge collapsed due to river ice. The bridge reopened in 1922 after construction to repair the structure, at which time the bridge was also covered, despite some local opposition. The wooden piers were also converted to concrete. A pedestrian walkway was added to the bridge in 1945. In 1966, vandals attempted to burn the bridge down. In 1970, heavy trucks were barred from crossing the bridge. The bridge was declared a National Historic Site in 1980, and a Provincial Historic Sitein 1999. In 1982, the bridge was again closed for repairs after a car struck a steel beam, causing part of the bridge to drop. The bridge was reopened to traffic on February 10, 1983. In 2006, the town of Hartland contributed a small piece of wood from the bridge to the Six String Nation project. Part of this material now serves as one of the reinforcing strips on the interior of Voyageur, the guitar at the heart of the project. In the winter of 2007, the bridge was closed due to the central beam splitting down the middle. It has since been reopened after repairs were carried out. On July 4, 2012, in honour of its 111th anniversary, it was celebrated with a Google Doodle on Google's Canadian homepage.
Legends
When the bridge was mostly used by horse and wagon, couples would stop half-way across to share a kiss. The first wedding on the bridge was celebrated in September 1992 between Charmaine Laffoley and Dana Hunt from Toronto. It is thought by some locals to be good luck to hold one's breath the entire way across while driving.
The Hartland Bridge has a length of, which makes it the longest covered bridge in the world. It is also the longest covered bridge ever constructed in Canada, the second-longest being a long bridge on the Batiscan river in Quebec, in use between 1844 and 1870. On the other hand, several other, longer, covered bridges have existed in the past elsewhere in the world, notably the Columbia–Wrightsville Bridge in Pennsylvania, constructed in 1814 and measuring in length, crossing the Susquehanna River until its destruction in 1863 during the American Civil War. The Hartland Bridge has only one lane and only permits passage to vehicles having a mass lower than 10 tonnes and a height lower than. A small gallery, also covered and permitting access to pedestrians, is attached on the South side of the bridge.
