On June 27, 1993, 5,200 runners from across the country came to inaugurate the Mid-Bay Bridge with a 5K run across the span.
Florida Governor ‘Walkin Lawton’ Chiles pulled the trigger on the starting gun and set the runners on their way to Destin across the 3.6 mile structure above the Choctawhatchee Bay.
The bridge, which was built for $81 million and initially cost $2 to cross each way, took X years to build and cut off about 25 minutes of travel time, according to the Pensacola News Journal article at the time.
“It was finished five months ahead of schedule, because of the determination and know-how of the men – and they did it right from the beginning,” a local told the paper.
The fastest man across the bridge was James Fraizer, a Panama City resident who completed the run in 15:58. “It’s hard to take in the view when you are competing,” he told a reporter before he ran back across the bridge.
The Mid-Bay Bridge can receive up to 30,000 daily trips a day during the peak of the summer season.
The program began thanks to Eglin Air Force Base’s use of the Enhanced Use Lease program that allowed the Federal Government to sign off pieces of property that allowed “under-utlilized, non-excess real property assets to commercial developers or municipalities for fair market value rent,” according to the environmental engineering journal.
As more and more people found out about the Emerald Coast and wanted to vacation there (and not pass through more populated areas on the long way around) Eglin determined that adding a toll road around Niceville would significantly reduce traffic headaches for locals and tourists, increase readiness for airmen, and provide revenue-generating opportunities for the land that was otherwise useless to the Air Force.
But in order to build the 11-mile extension to the roadway, the engineers would have to create plans that bridged various creeks along the route, maintain “bad weather-landing capability, maintain a full flying schedule and work in an environmentally sensitive area.”
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