TAMPA, Fla. — Don't groan. Seriously.
We were confused when we first got the question, too.
A viewer reached out and asked if the Howard Frankland Bridge's name had ever changed. Before you scroll on...that viewer was actually onto something.
There has actually been a decent number of questions about whether it’s called the Howard Frankland Bridge or the Howard Franklin Bridge. And, it goes beyond people not knowing how to spell a name.
We actually received a postcard from that first viewer showing the spelling as "Franklin." And, that got us thinking: if old fashion postcards were wrong when the bridge opened, then perhaps people who think the name changed are remembering documents that truly did misspell the name in the first place.
Determined to find out the true name of the bridge, and if it has ever changed, we spoke with an expert at the Tampa Bay History Center. He admits the name can cause confusion.
We’ll get to the bridge in a minute, but first, let’s talk about the man who wanted this bridge built: William Howard Frankland.
“Howard Frankland, spelled L-A-N-D, was an influential businessman in Tampa. One of the things that he owned, his main claim to fame, was tire companies and gas stations,” Rodney Kite-Powell, the director of the Touchton Map Library at the Tampa Bay History Center.
The son of a horse buggy seller, Frankland arrived in Tampa in 1925 and would be involved in all kinds of businesses and ventures. He founded Pioneer Tire and Rubber Products Inc., worked as a banker, and most importantly, he was a member of the Florida State Road Board.
Over the years, interstate highways were starting to spread around the country. Originally, those interstates were meant to move people around cities, not through them. However, as more people bought cars and hit the road, the federal government realized the need for these city connectors. That’s how I-275 was born.
“275 was intended to go through Tampa, through downtown, through west Tampa, and eventually make its way over to Pinellas County, down to St. Petersburg,” Kite-Powell explained. “There were already two bridges that crossed Tampa Bay, the Gandy Bridge, and what was originally the Ben T. Davis Causeway. But, neither one of those bridges could really accommodate the interstate, and they weren’t in the right place either.
In comes Howard Frankland, who conveniently owned property on the Tampa side, right where the bridge would need to be built.
“It made perfect sense for him to have not only the influence to bring that interstate here and help guide its path but to also make a little money in the process,” Kite-Powell said.
Getting the bridge approved wouldn’t be an easy task. At the time, people simply didn’t see a need for a third bridge, and some thought no one would use it.
But, by the 1950s and early 1960s, the Tampa Bay area was growing fast, and there were more and more cars on the road, demonstrating a need for this third connector. So, Frankland sold his property to the government and construction began in 1957.
While he had nothing to do with the design or construction of the bridge, it was his idea, so the bridge was named after him: Howard Frankland. But, it’s not necessarily a happy ending for the bridge because after it was built, that was when the problems started.
“The design proved to be pretty dangerous. There were a lot of car accidents, and a lot of them were even fatal,” Kite-Powell described.
The bridge had four lanes, two going in each direction. It was separated by what was basically a tall curb, and there wasn’t much of a shoulder for drivers to pull over.
“If there was an accident in one lane, and it was a particularly violent crash, one or two of those cars could enter oncoming traffic to make the accident even worse,” Kite-Powell said.
The bridge developed quite the reputation, with at least 10 people dying in the first few years of it being open. While the name was never Howard Franklin, it was often called the “Howard Frankenstein” and the “Car-Strangled Spanner.”
“It was a monster, it was a dangerous bridge to cross,” Kite-Powell said.
In response to the accidents, signs and warnings were installed, and lanes were painted with solid white lines to prevent passing and lane changes. In 1962, steel-reinforced concrete barriers were also added. Fewer accidents happened, but more people were crossing the bridge, making it inefficient.
In the 1980s, another parallel span with four lanes was added. Now, there would be eight lanes in hopes of alleviating the traffic. But, the bridge ran into another problem when I-275 was also expanded to eight lanes. Now, with no additional capacity on the bridge, it faced another round of overcrowding.
Fast forward to today, the Florida Department of Transportation is still trying to improve the bridge. In 2020, construction started to build a completely new bridge that will carry southbound traffic. Once that is done, the current southbound bridge will be converted to carry northbound traffic. It will also have a pathway for pedestrian and bicycle traffic.
Since then, the infamous nicknames of the bridge have faded, but the mix-up between Howard Frankland and Howard Franklin remains.
“In Tampa, there’s a Franklin street named after Benjamin Franklin, and of course, we have the Howard Frankland bridge. Because the name sounds so familiar, I think people get confused by them,” Kite-Powell explained.
“Ben Franklin, I hope, is still pretty well known, but Howard Frankland isn’t really that well known. If you don’t emphasize the ‘land’ part of it, it can turn into ‘lin,’ and people can get confused by it.”
So, it has always been the Howard Frankland, and for the foreseeable future, that’s what it’ll continue to be called. And for the postcard? It’s a nice photo, but it’s not the 'Howard Franklin.' The postcard was simply wrong.
Katie Jones is a digital journalist with 10 Tampa Bay. If you have any questions about the area, or just why things are the way they are, you can email her at mjones@10TampaBay.com, or you can connect with her on Twitter.