Route 50
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old buggy, sold Tony and apparently never ventured across Route 50 again. A second para llel Bay br idge was opened in 1973, and the old Choptank bridge was replaced with a dual-lane bridge in 1987 and the 1935 bridge turned into a fishing pier. A second bypass named the Easton Parkway was built on the west side of Easton in 1971, which paved the way for commercial and residential developments along the bypass, including the Glebe Road Shopping Center in 1972, Tred Avon Square shopping center in 1976 and the Waterside Village Shopping Center in 2008. The Dover bridge was replaced in 2018. The old 213 route to the beach had been called the Shore Boulevard, which implied a picturesque Sunday drive through the country. The two-lane Route 50 was touted as the Main Street of the Eastern Shore for all the commerce it would bring. However, when Route 50 became a dual highway, the Talbot County section was called Ocean Gateway: i.e., the fastest way to reach the beach. When Maryland Gov. Schaefer’s Reach The Beach campaign was initiated in 1987, it seemed that Talbot County and the Eastern Shore were now just some annoying red lights on the way.
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James Dawson is the owner of Unicorn Bookshop in Trappe.
peake Bay bridge, which opened in 1952, and the old Bay ferries were closed. Route 213 still came down from Chestertown and Centreville, but it ended at Route 50 just before Wye Mills. Traffic kept increasing, and the roads continued to grow. When Route 50 became a dual highway in August, 1962, William “Old Man” Murray, the last miller of Wright’s Mill, still drove a horse and buggy from his house in Trappe to go to work at the mill. The single-lane Route 50 was not a problem for him or his horse, Tony, but after one harrowing trip across the new dual highway, Murray parked his
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