Every weekend after Labor Day, the Michigan towns of Mackinaw City and St. Ignace celebrate the Mackinac Bridge , which connects Michigan’s upper and lower peninsulas as it stretches across a straight between Lake Michigan and Lake Huron. The Mackinac Bridge Antique Tractor Crossing is more than just the crossing itself, but a multiple-day celebration of this area’s agricultural heritage. Although the bridge is technically Interstate 75, the event gets special permission to take over the right lane of the northbound side for the parade. The crossing takes several hours, with tractors beginning their departure from Mackinaw City at 8:30 a.m and continuing to arrive in St. Ignace until 2:00 p.m.
Food trucks park up and the two towns arrange various games and activities take place on either side of the bridge in the days before and after the crossing. Both towns get to host displays of more than 1,000 vintage tractors, the pinnacle of which is the crossing over the bridge on Saturday. Participating tractors this year must be from 1982 or earlier, which owners can still fix themselves and are blissfully free of technology that can sometimes make modern tractors act possessed.
Linking Michigan together
The Mackinac Bridge is the only road connection between the two halves of Michigan. The Mackinac Bridge Authority says the idea of such a bridge had been considered since the late 1800s, but it took until the 1950s to become a reality, thanks in part to the two World Wars diverting funding and resources. Construction of the five-mile bridge began in 1954, and it opened to the public on November 1, 1957. It is the third-longest suspension bridge in the U.S. and the world’s longest suspension bridge between anchorages. Jam Handy made a short film about the bridge’s construction shortly after its completion, if you want to know more.
Our readers say Mighty Mac is one of the best bridges in the world to drive across, as well as one of the scariest. The winds down the Straits of Mackinac can force high-profile vehicles to slow down to 20 mph and have even required an escort at times. At times of intense weather, the Mighty Mac closes down altogether, and for good reason; in 1989 a Yugo was blown completely off the bridge, killing the woman driver. That’s not a problem for the antique tractors, though, which are only required to maintain 10 mph during the parade and crossing.
