text: Proposals and ferries It is possible that studies may have been conducted as early as the 1880s into the possibility of a bridge across the Chesapeake Bay. However, the first known proposal came about in 1907 and called for a crossing between Baltimore and Tolchester Beach. In 1927, local businesspeople were authorized to finance the construction of a Baltimore to Tolchester Beach crossing. Plans for the new bridge were made, but construction was canceled following the Wall Street Crash of 1929 with the collapse of the American economy and resulting Great Depression of the 1930s.
  Ferries were used as the main mode of transportation across the bay from the colonial period until the completion of the 1952 bridge. The first service ran from Annapolis to Broad Creek on Kent Island, roughly where the bridge is today. In 1919, the Claiborne–Annapolis Ferry Company began running ferries between Annapolis and Claiborne, a community near St. Michaels.
  In July 1930, the Claiborne–Annapolis Ferry Company added a new route, one running from Annapolis to Matapeake, a significantly shorter distance. The auto and passenger ferries were taken over by the State Roads Commission in 1941 (reorganized into today's State Highway Administration of the Maryland Department of Transportation in 1973). Two years later, the commission moved the western terminus of the old Annapolis–Matapeake ferry to Sandy Point (later adjacent to Sandy Point State Park), shortening the cross-bay trip.