Jubilee Bridge history celebrated as new memorial unveiled on the Gold Coast

Main Beach residents have gathered to honour a bridge that vanished 60 years ago but whose legacy built the tourism empire we know today as Surfers Paradise.

The past has come alive again in Main Beach with the unveiling of a memorial to its history.

Civic leaders and the suburb’s residents celebrated the centenary of the Jubilee Bridge’s opening by celebrating the key role it played in creating the modern Surfers Paradise.

The bridge, which opened in 1925, connected the township of Southport with what is today Main Beach.

Despite being demolished in the 1960s, area councillor Darren Taylor said it was important to celebrate the city’s history.

Councillor Darren Taylor and Mayor Tom Tate on the spot where the bridge came ashore at Jack Gordon Park next to Southport Yacht Club. Picture Glenn Hampson

“The Jubilee Bridge was the start of the connection of our city between Southport and Main Beach.

“We can see the growth of this city and that was really important back in the day and today it is just as important.

“We have seen the connection (between Main Beach and Southport) change but this was a point in our time which started the changes of our city.”

The memorial is an “interpretative” sign which tells the history of the bridge and how it came to be built in the 1920s.

The memorial itself. Picture Glenn Hampson

More than 40 people attended the unveiling of the memorial in Jack Gordon Park near Southport Yacht Club, close to the location where the bridge once stood.

In the early 20th century, the Myers ferry service connected Southport to surrounding suburbs, and it was a horse and buggy ride to what is today known as Surfers Paradise.

But as the region’s population grew in the aftermath of World War I, it became clear a bridge was needed.

The Jubilee Bridge Picture: Supplied

Construction of the bridge began in 1924 to finally make life easier for residents and the burgeoning tourist market.

The timber Jubilee Bridge ran from the end of Queen St in Southport to a site just south of the modern-day Southport Yacht Club in Main Beach.

On 25 November, 1925, bridge engineer George Brindell pushed a wheelbarrow to prove two vehicles could pass on the new bridge

The bridge’s name commemorated the 50th anniversary of Southport’s first land sales in 1875 and originally featured a central span which would rise to allow boats to cross between the Broadwater and Nerang River.

The first pylons were installed on the Main Beach side and gradually it rose in the months afterwards.

The bridge’s opening in November 1925 was a big occasion, with hundreds of locals bringing their cars down and parking them on Queen Street, ready to test out the new bridge.

Its opening coincided with the opening of Jim Cavill’s famous Surfers Paradise Hotel further south, with the new bridge providing an easier journey to the watering hole which helped spark the transformation of the region into a tourism mecca.

The Jubilee right before its demolition. Picture: Supplied

The bridge proved popular immediately but less than a decade later, it was already struggling to deal with the amount of traffic it was carrying, requiring a widening in 1933.

The rising span was removed and it was possible to have two vehicles crossing side-by-side, however overtaking was banned.

The Jubilee Bridge’s time came to an end when it was replaced in 1967 by the Gold Coast bridge, today known as Sundale Bridge, and soon thereafter dismantled.