July 1, 1926: The Benjamin Franklin Bridge Opens

July 1, 1926, 100 years ago: The Delaware River Bridge opens, connecting Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and Camden, New Jersey, over the river in question. For the next 3 years, it is the longest suspension bridge ever built.

The name was changed to the Benjamin Franklin Bridge in 1955, named for Philadelphia's favorite son, since the Walt Whitman Bridge, to the south and also over the Delaware, had been approved.

It connects the downtowns of Pennsylvania's largest city and southern New Jersey's largest city, and carries Interstate 676 and U.S. Route 30, and the PATCO Speedline subway railroad. Because it's close to downtown, it's often used for panoramic photographs of the city.

It was preceded as a Delaware River bridge by:

* 1884: The Calhoun Street Bridge in Trenton.

* 1896: The rail-only Delair Bridge.

* 1903: The Morrisville-Trenton Railroad Bridge.

* 1913: The West Trenton Railroad Bridge.

And it has been followed by:

* 1928: The Lower Trenton Bridge, the one with the big letters on each side, reading, "TRENTON MAKES THE WORLD TAKES."

* 1929: The Tacony-Palmyra Bridge, N.J. and Pennsylvania Route 73.

* 1931: The Burlington-Bristol Bridge, N.J. and Pennsylvania Route 413.

* 1951: The original, now-eastward span of the Delaware Memorial Bridge, Interstate 295 and U.S. Route 40.

* 1952: The Trenton-Morrisville Toll Bridge, U.S. Route 1.

* 1956: The Delaware River-Turnpike Toll Bridge, part of the Pearl Harbor Memorial Turnpike Extension, connecting the New Jersey Turnpike with the Pennsylvania Turnpike, Interstate 276.

* 1957: The Walt Whitman Bridge, Interstate 76.

* 1961: The original Scudder Falls Bridge, which was eventually bannered as Interstate 95.

* 1968: The 2nd, westward span of the Delaware Memorial Bridge.

* 1974: The Commodore Barry Bridge, U.S. Route 322.

* 1976: The Betsy Ross Bridge, N.J. and Pennsylvania Route 90.

* 2019: The new Scudder Falls Bridge.

Although not as famous as the Brooklyn Bridge in New York or the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco, both of which tend to get destroyed in disaster movies, the Ben Franklin Bridge was shown seriously damaged in the 2023 film Shazam: Fury of the Gods.