The first span went up in 1952. It connected Baltimore, Washington , and Annapolis with what had been a very rural area, and almost immediately more and more traffic began to flow across it as people headed for the beaches in Ocean City or in Delaware, or got vacation homes on the Eastern Shore near nice waterfront towns like St. Michael's. To handle the greater traffic, another span was added in 1973.

Maryland Public Television did a nice documentary on the building of the bridge: https://www.pbs.org/video/mpt-specials-chesapeake-bay-bridge-spanning-bay/