You can own a piece of the Mighty Mack, but it’s going to cost you $20 and a trip to the Upper Peninsula.
The Mackinac Bridge Authority is selling 5x11-inch pieces of metal grating for $20 each, limit three per customer. This only happens once in a while when there’s work done on the grating, and pieces go fast.
“We had just over 500 pieces available for sale starting this Monday and we’re almost done. There’s only a few pieces left to sell.”
Bridge Director Kim Nowack says they used to just scrap grating pieces.
“Since it’s a by-product of construction, we used to just put these little pieces in a barrel and take them to the scrapyard. Then we realized people really like this kind of thing.”
Sales are in-person only at the administration office in St. Ignace so those traveling from the Lower Peninsula will also have to pay the toll - $4 each way. If you miss your chance this time, there may be more available next summer, and bigger pieces are sold occasionally too.
“We started selling larger pieces 40x5-foot on an auction site and we sell some mid- size pieces about 2x2-foot also on the auction site govdeals.com.”
So what do people do with grating from the Mackinac Bridge?
“People are very creative with what they do with the. Sometimes they leave them intact, sometimes they make them into keychains. They do all kinds of things with these.”
