Bridgeport: The Crossing That Cost a Dollar Fifty

Bridgeport sits on the south bank of the Canadian River at what was once one of the most important crossings on the early Route Sixty-Six. Before a proper bridge existed, travelers had to ford the Canadian or use a ferry, a process that could strand vehicles for days when the river ran high.

The Bridgeport Hill section of early Route Sixty-Six was notoriously steep and unpaved, a red-dirt switchback that wagons and early automobiles climbed with great difficulty. A private toll bridge eventually replaced the ford, built in nineteen twenty-one and charging one dollar for a car and one dollar and fifty cents for a truck, a steep price that angered travelers until the state bought the bridge and dropped the toll in nineteen thirty. The old toll bridge is gone, replaced in the early nineteen thirties by a pony-truss bridge downriver, but the river crossing at Bridgeport remains one of the defining geographical moments on the westbound drive across Oklahoma.