In 1895, a group of businessmen formed the "Knights of Ak-Sar-Ben" ("Nebraska" spelled backward).
In 1938, they sold bonds to finance the purchase of the bridge for $2,350,000.
They continued to charge tolls until 1947, at which point the bonds were paid off and the structure, along with the South Omaha Bridge, became free bridges.
The hated toll booths were paraded through Omaha before a crowd of 35,000 observers to celebrate Free Bridge Day on September 24, 1947.
The estimated traffic on the bridge doubled the following year.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ak-Sar-Ben_Bridge
The 4-door in the picture looks like about a 1940 model.
Thanks Marc B!
It is sad to see a car sitting out in the snow when there is more often than not just about a hundred dollars worth of junk filling up the garage.
ReplyDeleteJesse, I don't get to see half the banners you post on your blog, so I'm grateful that you do a post of them all on the last day of the month. Thank you sir. You know, if you don't have it already, you could do just a "Banner Post" so your appreciative minions could spend countless hour looking at them. Or do you already have that?
ReplyDeletedown the right hand column of the blog, are about a thousand 'tag' words. Just click on the one you want to see all the posts of, and bingo, there you go.
Deletehttps://justacarguy.blogspot.com/search/label/banners for all 153 banner posts
Ah yes, first pic, the old government dodge "Your tolls will make it free!" Bet that never happened.
ReplyDeleteA couple of the drag strip pics could be captioned: And people wonder why they called them 'Funny Cars'!
In this case, it was true -
DeleteFrom Wikipedia -
It was a toll bridge. As automobiles became more popular, there were resentments about the tolls. In 1895, a group of businessmen formed the "Knights of Ak-Sar-Ben" ("Nebraska" spelled backward). In 1938, they sold bonds to finance the purchase of the bridge for $2,350,000. They continued to charge tolls until 1947, at which point the bonds were paid off and the structure, along with the South Omaha Bridge, became free bridges. The hated toll booths were paraded through Omaha before a crowd of 35,000 observers to celebrate Free Bridge Day on September 24, 1947. The estimated traffic on the bridge doubled the following year.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ak-Sar-Ben_Bridge
The 4-door in the picture looks like about a 1940 model.
thanks! I added this info to the post!
Delete