The Merrill P. Barber Bridge in Vero Beach, Florida

The Barber Bridge is the fixed concrete arch bridge, FDOT structure 880087, that carries State Road 60 over the Intracoastal Waterway between mainland Vero Beach and the barrier island.

The Florida Bridge Information report dated October 1, 2026 from the Florida Department of Transportation lists structure 880087, the MERRILL P. BARBER BRIDGE on SR-60 over the ICWW in Indian River County, owned by the State Highway Agency, with a year built of 1995. The same table lists structure 880077, the Alma Lee Loy Bridge on SR 656 (17th St.) over the Intracoastal Waterway, built in 1979, which is the separate crossing to the south.

The Barber name in Vero Beach covers two bridges. The state historical marker titled THE BRIDGES explains that a 1950s Barber bridge with a steel bascule span was replaced in the 1990s by a concrete arch bridge, and that the second Barber bridge is fixed. Both followed the 1920 wooden bridge that first linked Vero to Orchid Island. This page covers the SR 60 crossing only.

Before the Barber bridges, Vero crossed the Indian River on a wooden bridge that opened on Labor Day 1920, which the state marker says made Vero the first community with a bridge to Orchid Island.

The Vero marker records that a parade of Model T automobiles crossed the first bridge to span the Indian River that day. Made of sabal palm pilings and rough-cut planking, it began on the mainland side from a causeway of dredged fill and curved in the middle, where the bridge tender's house stood. The tender opened the metal swing span by hand for boat traffic.

Crossing the 1920 Vero bridge cost money, and the marker lists the tolls shown below.

Barber was a Vero Beach businessman, mayor, State Road Board member and state senator whose lobbying the state marker credits for the 1950s bridge that first carried his name.

The state's Great Floridians 2000 program records that Barber, born in 1910, began his career in 1930 as co-owner of one of the first growers supply businesses in Vero Beach. He helped found the Indian River Citrus Bank in 1935 and was its president from 1948 to 1975. As Mayor of Vero Beach from 1947 to 1949 he negotiated the contract that brought the Brooklyn Dodgers to spring training.

The same Vero Beach entry ties him to the crossing: as a member of the Florida State Road Board, he brought road improvements to Vero Beach and Indian River County, including the first modern bridge across the Indian River. He was elected to the Florida Senate in 1953 and served two terms, supported legislation providing polio vaccines to Floridians and the state's community college system, sponsored legislation establishing the Appellate Court System, and died in 1985. His Great Floridian plaque is at Vero Beach City Hall, 1053 20th Place. The same program credits Alex MacWilliam Sr., a longtime Vero Beach mayor and state representative, with supporting the building of State Route 60.

The Great Floridians list describes MacWilliam as born May 25, 1891 in Edinburgh, Scotland, and says he decided in 1919 to move to Vero Beach, where he helped build the Riomar subdivision and Riomar Country Club. He served as mayor of Vero Beach from 1927 to 1945 and again from 1949 to 1951, and while mayor also served 13 years as the State Representative for Indian River County.

The first Barber bridge, built in the 1950s, reused the 1920 dredged-fill causeway as its bridgehead and opened for boats with a steel bascule span run from a tender's booth.

The marker states that the new Vero bridge was built after successful lobbying from Florida State Senator Merrill P. Barber, using an extension of the dredged-fill causeway for its bridgehead, and that it was designed in the Mid-Century Modern style. A bascule span lifts to let vessels pass, so traffic on the Vero Beach crossing stopped whenever the draw opened for boats on the Intracoastal Waterway.

That causeway landing tied the 1950s bridge to the same Vero mainland spot the 1920 bridge had used. The Great Floridians entry calls the Barber crossing the first modern bridge across the Indian River, while the marker describes the earlier wooden bridge's metal swing span as opened by hand.

In the 1990s a new Vero mainland approach was built to the north and the Barber drawbridge was replaced with a fixed concrete arch, which FDOT records as built in 1995.

According to the marker, the second Barber bridge is fixed and tall enough that the Atlantic Ocean can be seen clearly to the east. Shifting the landing north freed the old causeway, and the old causeway and bridgehead became Royal Palm Pointe, a residential and commercial corridor with a city park on the river in Vero Beach.

The Vero Beach marker itself stands on that former approach. The state database lists THE BRIDGES with a location of 2 Royal Palm Pointe City Park and a year of 2018. The City of Vero Beach Florida Historic Marker Program page says there are a number of Florida historical markers in Vero Beach and Indian River County and that the process is managed locally by the Indian River County Historical Society.

FDOT rated the Vero Beach Barber Bridge in Good condition after its last inspection on 11/27/2024, with an average daily traffic figure of 20,500 vehicles in its October 2026 report.

The 2026 table lists the Vero Beach bridge as Open. The FDOT Bridge Information page explains that, beginning with the first quarter 2025 extract, each bridge carries a performance rating based on its controlling National Bridge Inventory rating, where Good means an NBI rating of 6 or 7, and that the older sufficiency rating is reported only for historical purposes.

Earlier figures show how the numbers move. The Florida Bridge Information report for the third quarter of 2018 listed the MERRILL P. BARBER BRIDGE in Indian River County with an average daily traffic of 23,500, an inspection date of 3/31/2017 and a sufficiency rating of 89.8. In that 2018 table the neighboring structure 880077 was still named the 17th Street Bridge, carrying 19,400 vehicles a day; by 2026 FDOT listed it as the Alma Lee Loy Bridge with 22,000. Last verified: October 15, 2026, by re-reading the FDOT bridge tables for 2018 and October 2026, the FDOT Bridge Information page, state marker 374, the archived Great Floridians 2000 list and the City of Vero Beach marker program page.