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07/01/2007Big Mac at 50
Builders: 'Guts, fortitude'
Richard DeMara on night shift August 1956 as the Mackinac Bridge is under construction. The Vacationland ferry is in the background. MACKINAW CITY — J.C. Stilwell sat in a booth at his Mackinaw City pizzeria, tucked in the shadows of the Mackinac Bridge, and recalled when he helped build the massive structure more than five decades ago. "It seems like it was yesterday,” said Stilwell, silver hair framing his creased, workingman's face, a small gold wrench dangling from a chain around his neck. Stilwell, 78, was an ironworker and among the 3,500 men employed from May 1954 to November 1957 at the bridge site in the Straits of Mackinac. "I think about the good times we had and the men that got killed,” Stilwell said. Three ironworkers, one diver and one laborer died during bridge construction. Every man there was aware of the dangers, Stilwell said. "You could tell a lot were nervous. They were conscious of it. If you fell, you died,” he said. Richard DeMara of Bay City also was among the initial wave of bridge ironworkers and, like Stilwell, said it doesn't seem so long ago when they dangled high above deep, swift waters, building the connection between the Upper and Lower Peninsulas. "It meant working the biggest job in the history of Michigan. When you worked on Big Mac, you worked a big job,” he said. DeMara, 78, worked for $1.60 an hour at a Cheboygan camera shop before he hired on at the bridge for $3.50 an hour. "Back then, that was a lot of money. It was exciting. I worked at the top of the towers,” DeMara said. He said the Mackinac Bridge was put together by common men with many abilities, all working hard on what they knew was an important project. "It was a bunch of guys with guts and fortitude who built that bridge,” said DeMara, who was hired to help spin 42,000 miles of cable and later worked on the roadway. "And you had to watch yourself because it was only two or three feet to the edge of the catwalk,” DeMara said. The work changed for the men every few months, first setting foundations for the piers, raising steel framework, setting tower sections, suspending the many cables, and then laying iron for the roadway. It all added up to an amazing project, said Clifford Sperry of Linden, who remembers using strange, custom equipment and machinery, including a high-powered gun that drove rivets into the towers and could fly out of a worker's grasp if he wasn't careful. "It caused quite a vibration, all right,” he said. Sperry said the work wasn't easy and the strong winds made you feel "a little wobbly.” "It was a good idea to be in shape, that's for sure,” he said. Sperry, 81, said he's proud to have been a Mackinac Bridge ironworker and he intends to attend this month's anniversary festivities, including the dedication of an ironworker statue and memorial at Bridge View Park in St. Ignace. And he well recalls sometimes working under bad weather conditions. "It was rough water to get out there, but the wind was the main thing. It blew pretty hard some days. Sometimes you wondered whether we should be out there,” Sperry said. Stilwell remembers when about two dozen workers were stranded for 24 hours on the north tower pier because of bad weather. "The wind got so bad, they couldn't bring the boat in to get us,” he said. Stilwell is rebuilding the Mackinac Bridge Museum in downtown Mackinaw City after losing it in a fire in August 2005. He's gathered more items and photographs to display from friends and hopes to be open again in time for the bridge's 50th anniversary celebration. And DeMara hasn't lost the photography bug he displayed prior to his stint as a bridge ironworker. He'll give two free slide shows of personal bridge snapshots during the 50th anniversary celebration on July 27 in St. Ignace.
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