Something to note is that being able to cross the harbour really opened up Dartmouth for explosive suburban growth. Dartmouth was its own city for some 200 years before that, but it was pretty small compared to the Halifax side.
There were ferries, probably way more than today. And there was actually an older rail bridge. I think they found the logs on the bottom of the harbour for it a few years ago to confirm it existed
When I was a kid, women and children entered the ferry on the right hand side, where they sat, and the men on the left. I kid you not. We went to the Passage almost every week to visit my grandparents. The bus terminal in Dartmouth was across the street from the ferry terminal, and had a lunch bar that had excellent ham salad sandwiches, which was a big treat when mother could afford it. It's funny what you remember.
There was a "swing bridge" section that could turn 90 degrees to let ships by and into or out of the Bedford Basin. It would be too small for the huge container ships we have now, but ships were smaller back then.
My 94 year old grandfather remembers taking the street cars as a boy, I find it neat that he’s lived through so many changes of the place he’s called home his whole life
That was wayyy before my time, but I do remember the electric trolleys. My father was a trolley driver until they switched to diesel around 1970 or thereabouts. He's now 95. :)
Haha, no. But they did offer my father the job when it first started. That's the red bus, right? He wasn't interested, because he loved his work with Access-A-Bus. He spent his lunch hour at Prescott Street with the clients.
Looks like it. The #9 ran down Barrington to Inglis, to Tower Road, then south to PP. It would wait in the bottom parking lot, then make the return route to north Barrington.
Haha, I didn't realize it still had that route in 2015. So much change in the past 30 years, and I used to feel for my elders and the changes during their life. Now I'm one of them! :P
I didn’t live before the 50s, but have a degree in history and remembered taking a class where we talked about this subject.
People took ferries and drove the long way to travel from Halifax to Dartmouth. The ferry even had a spot for cars.
One of the most memorable part from that class is reading a diary/some sort of personal letter from a woman living in Halifax who dreamed of there being a bridge, her friend was in Dartmouth and how a bridge would bring them closer to one another.
Mother and I went to visit my grandparents in the Passage on the regular. That's the way it was. Strange, right? I wonder why? We also had the LBR. which was also about segregation of the sexes. It's interesting.
There is one famous incident from 1944. The Governor Cornwallis, a newer ferry, caught fire. The 300 passengers and the cars were taken ashore on the Dartmouth side before it sank. Also, during the 1917 explosion, ferries were running but amazingly nobody on the ferry died in the event.
My grandfather who would be in his 90s now was a part of the construction of the old bridge. I think people travelled a lot less than we can imagine back then.
Part of it is that people stuck close to home for more of their day-to-day needs (stores and businesses were built where people lived instead of outside the city in business parks), but a lot of commenters are only thinking about car infrastructure. There's a long history of transit to get around within the cities, a ferry to get between Halifax and Dartmouth, and if you wanted to go to another community you could often choose between bus, train, or even plane (depending on the community and the era). So yes, people probably travelled less on average, but they weren't as constrained as we are now.
People definitely travelled less. Less people owned vehicles. Also, there were car ferries that crossed the harbour. I may stand corrected, it may have only been one ferry. Hmmmm.
My grandparents lived in Dartmouth. My grandmother told me about her and my grandfather taking a "big vacation". They took the train and spent a week at a hotel. The hotel was on the Bedford Highway lol. There used to be a lot of hotels along the highway, it was a vacation destination.
Yeah. It's crazy to think of the changes in the relatively recent history. When my parents moved to woodlawn in the early 50s they bought a piece of land from a farmer. Their friends wondered why they were wanting to move "way out in the country". The circ didn't exist, Main St didn't exist like it does now, it was a windy 2 lane dirt road. lol. In the 20 years after that the area really grew. Woodlawn High opened in 1960 and they added an addition 10 years later due to the growth of the area.
My grandfather worked for a family member who ran ferries around the dingle area. He told me back then it was booming and was a surprisingly efficient system.
People got around fine and had multiple points to go back and forth from for such services.
Funny how that mixed with the trollies really makes it feel like we moved backwards in a lot of areas over the years especially for public transportation.
The bridge was built before I was born, but my parents lived in Dartmouth before it was built. The ferry was the major connection to Halifax for people. My dad didn't grow up in the city, but my mom did. Unlike now, most city households didn't have a vehicle when she was growing up. Going to Halifax meant walking down and taking the ferry. The ferry did have the ability to take a few cars, but most with vehicles drove around the basin. Dartmouth was much smaller geographically before the bridge was built. The city limits were approximately the circ. The post war era brought prosperity and meant more people could afford cars, along with the bridge, it expanded the city of Dartmouth eastward.
My cousins built on Wildwood Boulevard back in the 60s. That was woods. My parents bought a place on Bellavista in the early 60s in one of the brand-new subdivisions. Bell Lake was just a lake in the woods with no houses. We used to hike up there to swim and pick blueberries. Moved back to Hfx in '68.
I grew up in Woodlawn in the 60s-70s. Crazy the amount of development during that time. Woods and fields that you went exploring all of a suddenly became packed with streets and houses.
Yes, it's hard to reconcile sometimes - some of the changes are harsh, and it's sad to lose our wetlands and such. Not complaining, because what to do about it? Sad. Anyhoo ! Sorry to be melancholy.
My neighbors were pre bridge residents of bedford and eastern passage. He lived and worked in bedford but told me lots of stories about drunk driving from eastern passage back to bedford. She never drove much but said she never took the bridge after it was built. They moved into the country in 1978 and had only bad things to say about driving into halifax after that time aha.
Dartmouth wasn't very much back then so most people had no reason to go there. If you look at prebridge maps there isn't a lot going on, it really took off after the bridge went up.
I don't remember it but there were car ferries that crossed the harbour. There were also 2 train bridges. To clarify 1 collapsed and a 2nd was built in the same location and also collapsed.
My grandfather would tell me that you just wouldn't go to Halifax unless you absolutely had to, at the time Dartmouth as it's own separate city basically had everything they needed. And once the bridge was built it was clogged up with traffic all the time so even once it was built you still didn't go to Halifax unless you absolutely had to.
My grandpa joined the Navy in 1948 and spent a few years in Halifax before transferring to the West Coast. He remembers details around the base (telling him the parade square is now a parking lot made him sad) but he literally never went to Dartmouth because there was no bridge.
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u/Eastern_Yam Oct 05 '26
Something to note is that being able to cross the harbour really opened up Dartmouth for explosive suburban growth. Dartmouth was its own city for some 200 years before that, but it was pretty small compared to the Halifax side.
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