ST. IGNACE, MI - Sixty-five years ago today, royal fever gripped the Straits of Mackinac as Queen Elizabeth and her husband, Prince Philip, passed underneath Michigan’s Mackinac Bridge on July 5, 1959, aboard their yacht, the Britannia.
The British royals had embarked on a six-week tour the month before, destined for many stops in Canada and one in the U.S. A highlight was the 33-year-old queen’s ceremony with U.S. President Dwight Eisenhower. It officially opened the St. Lawrence Seaway, a system of locks and canals which connects shipping channels in the Great Lakes to the Atlantic Ocean.
The monarch’s 412-foot yacht motored up the Detroit River, then north up Lake Huron, passing under the Mackinac Bridge and heading down Lake Michigan before stopping for the couple’s first-ever visit to Chicago.
For security reasons, the Britannia’s passage under the Mackinac Bridge on a summer Sunday afternoon took a little planning, as traffic on the nearly 2-year-old bridge needed to be stopped.
These details were explained by Lawrence A. Rubin, former executive secretary of the Mackinac Bridge Authority as well as a key figure in the construction and financing of the landmark span, in his book “Bridging the Straits: The Story of the Mighty Mac.”
The queen’s protection detail had visited the Mackinac Bridge Authority a few days before the yacht arrived in the Straits. They wanted all traffic stopped at the north and south towers during the time the Britannia passed underneath the middle of the main span of the 5-mile-long bridge. Rubin had suggested stricter guidelines, according to his book’s account:
“I was willing to oblige, but suggested we hold up traffic on both ends of the bridge rather than at the towers. That would not do, countered the Britishers. They did not want to inconvenience anyone more than absolutely necessary.”
The British royal yacht 'Britannia' preparing to pass underneath the Mackinac Bridge on July 5, 1959.
When the big day arrived, thousands of people had gathered in the Straits area to see the monarch’s yacht cruise by. According to accounts of the royal tour, the young queen had recently told just a handful of people that she was pregnant with her third child, who would arrive the next year as Prince Andrew.
Rubin’s account says a dense fog moved into the St. Ignace/Mackinaw City area, making it difficult for bridge staff to track the Britannia’s progress toward the Mighty Mac. When they finally spotted the yacht, it was just 500 yards east of the bridge. The signal was given and traffic was stopped.
What happened next was very un-British:
“I suppose that in England, proper Englishmen would remain in their cars, but this was America and hundreds of car occupants ditched their vehicles and ran out onto the center of the bridge, waving and shouting for a look at the British royalty, especially Prince Philip,” Rubin wrote. “It must be admitted with some measure of shame that some persons threw small items such as coins over the side and there were even a few who spat.”
The next day, on July 6, the Britannia and her royal entourage arrived in Chicago. The queen and her prince took a small boat to shore, where they were met by Chicago Mayor Richard J. Daley and other dignitaries to start her historic 14-hour tour of the Windy City, according to the Chicago Tribune.
While there, she toured the Art Institute of Chicago, dined at the Chicago Hilton & Towers, and even ducked out of a reception a bit early to have an emergency filling placed in one of her back teeth, according to a roundup of the day’s itinerary.
At the time of this trip, the royal yacht was just five years old. After traveling more than a million nautical miles, the floating palace was retired from royal service in 1997. It later became a tourist attraction in Edinburgh, Scotland.
To read more tidbits about the Mighty Mac’s history, check here.