This is the Snell Isle Bridge as it looks today. Originally constructed in the late 1920’s, the bridge’s very existence is a testament to the power of women in early St. Petersburg’s history. C. Perry Snell, the St. Petersburg developer who built so many of the beautiful homes and developed so many of the beautiful neighborhoods in St. Petersburg, donated a gift of land on Snell Isle to the St. Petersburg Woman’s Club in 1928. The Club initially wasn’t sure that they wanted to accept the gift, because the land was across the water from the mainland, it was beyond the street car line, it was located in what was then a jungle, and the only means of access to it was via a very rickety wooden bridge. But the Woman’s Club did accept the gift for their new clubhouse, and they immediately began to push the City Council to tear down the old wooden bridge and construct a new, state of the art drawbridge over Coffee Pot Bayou. On Christmas Day 1931, the new $100,000 bridge was dedicated and opened to traffic. Somewhere in the 1940’s, the drawbridge stopped being opened on demand, but the mechanism stayed in place until 1995. In 1995, The City of St. Petersburg essentially rebuilt the bridge, keeping as close as possible to the original look and feel, restoring the original street lamps, but replacing the drawbridge with a fixed span. It’s a very picturesque, often photographed, and often painted landmark in St. Petersburg. You can find the bridge by heading east on 22nd Avenue North until the road ends at Coffee Pot Bayou, then turning right one block.
Snell Isle Bridge (click picture for larger image)
