Bridge fills transportation gap in Manatee County

When the Fort Hamer Bridge temporarily opened Sept. 8 for evacuations due to Hurricane Irma, Parrish’s Alicia Simat and her husband, Mark, were two of the first people across.

She filmed the experience on her iPhone and sent the video to her son, Mark Simat, who is away at his junior year of college at Florida State University. Mark Simat had participated in the bridge’s groundbreaking ceremony alongside Manatee County officials.

“We just needed to drive over that span,” Alicia Simat said. “I can’t tell you how much that means to the people of Parrish. It’s connecting us to the world.”

Mark Simat has become somewhat of an expert on the bridge’s history. An eighth-grade history fair project he

completed in 2010 at R. Dan Nolan Middle School is on display at the Manatee County Central Library through January. It was used to help argue in favor of constructing the bridge in 2012, when Manatee County Commissioner Larry Bustle met with him about his findings and later lobbied to move forward with building the bridge.

“It went from being a project to being something that could affect the county,” said Mark Simat, who is now 20. “People had forgotten why the bridge was going to be there. For so long, people opposed it and stalled it, and it was forgotten.”

Mark Simat said it was a great feeling when, as a senior at Lakewood Ranch High School, he saw a sign on Fort Hamer Road that said the bridge was coming.

The Fort Hamer Bridge was scheduled to open Oct. 18, but Mark Simat could not get away from classes to attend the ceremony. He said he can’t wait to drive across the new bridge when he visits home.

When he was an eighth-grader, he was tasked with researching a project that had caused a conflict or controversy. He had heard his mother complain, for years, the Fort Hamer Bridge had never been built. It would have shaved off plenty of driving time during their commute from Parrish to Nolan and later to Lakewood Ranch High School.

Mark Simat began his search at the Manatee Central Library and later went to the Carnegie Library, in Palmetto, where he scoured through leather-bound books filled with minutes from Manatee County Commission meetings.

“Once he sat in the historical records library with (librarian) Cindy Russell, that was it,” Alicia Simat said. “The fact that he could touch and feel history in those giant leather books inspired him. He’s always had a thing for the past.”

Mark Simat learned Manatee County commissioners had set aside money for the bridge in 1909 and that a toll bridge was built across a different part of the Manatee River farther to the west.

“Being able to find old newspaper articles from 1909 was super interesting,” he said. “Usually, you’re doing research projects on something a little more current. I learned about Manatee County history.”

Mark Simat is proud his research was used to persuade the county to build the bridge.

“The work I did was used to make a difference,” Mark Simat said. “If I could do it, any kid in Manatee County, if they do the research …. could make a difference.”