Linking Michigan's two peninsulas was a goal decades before construction on the Mackinac Bridge began in 1954 following ceremonial groundbreaking ceremonies on May 7 in St. Ignace and May 8 in Mackinac City.

Sixty-two years after its start - and its opening more than three years later in November 1957 - the prodigious $100 million project remains Michigan's most iconic structure, a five-mile span that is among the world's largest top-20 suspensions.

Work on the bridge actually continued until 1958, marking a full four years of construction before completion.

The David B. Steinman designed connector was built by the largest bridge construction fleet ever assembled, according to the Mackinac Bridge Authority, which manages the span. Records show more than 3,500 people worked on the bridge itself and another 7,500 in construction related roles.

It wasn't easy work as five people died during the complicated process that involved watertight cassions being built, carried out onto the water and sunk into position to serve as footings for the towers. Later, creeper derricks helped take materials to the top of the massive towers. Truss sections were built and then taken out by barge before being placed.

Take a scroll through the pictures above, a slim portion of thousands taken by photographers for the state, to get an idea or a look back at how it all came together.

See the boats on which people crossed between the Lower and Upper peninsulas before the bridge. The state was the first and only state to offer a government-run ferry service, and it carried 12 million vehicles and more than 30 million passengers between Mackinaw City and St. Ignace between 1923 and 1957.

At one time, the service was seasonal and later the state bought icebreaking ships that "crunched through massive ice floes as if they were paper boxes."

Some of the bridge's facts and figures, courtesy of the managing authority:

• Total Length: 5 miles, or 26,372 feet

• Suspension bridge length: 8,614 feet

• Height of towers above water: 552 feet

• Depth of water at midspan: 295 feet

• Height above water at midspan: 199 feet

• Clearance for boats at midspan: 155 feet

• Weight: 2+ trillion pounds

• Number of Steel Rivets: 4,851,700

• Number of Steel Bolts: 1,016,600