In the next few years, the Ambassador Bridge would be the site for a number of stunts: planes would fly under it, a man would parachute off it, a man would cross it walking backwards, another would push a friend across it in a wheelbarrow, a girl would toe-dance her way across it and couples would marry at its international boundary line. But the 1930s were the antithesis of the rotating '20s The opening of the world's longest suspension bridge had been preceded, just 21 days before, by the beginning of the crash of the New York Stock Exchange and the onslaught of the Great Depression. While almost 200,000 vehicles crossed the Ambassador Bridge during the remaining month and a half of 1929, and just over 1.6 million vehicles traveled it the next year, the left jab of the Depression was followed by a quick right cross with the opening of the Detroit & Canada Tunnel, linking downtown Detroit and Windsor under the Detroit River, just a year following the Bridge's opening.

Financial Problems
Detroit International Bridge Company chairman and president Joseph A. Bower and his general manager, R. Bryce McDougald, former Windsor Collector of Customs, were faced with a competition for traffic that had not been projected or anticipated when the financial structure for the Bridge was originally planned. Compounding the problem were toll rates at the Tunnel much lower than what the Bridge could afford to offer. The competition from the Tunnel and Bridge also forced the ferries traversing the Detroit River to slash their rates 52 percent in an unsuccessful attempt to stay afloat.

Default
With traffic over the Ambassador Bridge dipping a half million in 1931, the bottom fell from the economic structure of the Bridge company. It went into default on the interest on its debentures and the first mortgage bonds that year, just two years after it opened. The Tunnel also went into default, and its economic underpinnings sank.

As Bridge traffic slipped another quarter million in 1932, committees were established to represent the bondholders. Heavy taxes further crippled the Bridge company's ability to right itself financially. In 1932, taxes represented 80 percent of revenue, and continued in the mid - 70 percent range for the next three years. And traffic continued to fall through the Depression years. It increased somewhat from 1935 through 1937, aided by an increase in truck traffic encouraged by the completion in December 1937 of a new 20-door Canada Customs warehouse. But the increases in truck traffic were not enough to halt the mounting financial problems of the Bridge company. By 1936, the accrued interest on the interest debt stood at $8,199,872 and climbing, in addition to unpaid taxes.

Reorganization
The savior of faltering businesses and bad debts, Joseph A. Bower, was now faced with the toughest challenge of his career: saving his own company. Through the final two years of the decade, he orchestrated a successful reorganization of the Bridge company. The reorganization went into effect July 1, 1939, with the bonds and debentures exchanged for $133,089 in common stock by the end of the year, out of a total of 217,175 shares of stock issued at a dollar a share. And with the assets of the Bridge reduced to $2,600,000, a property reassessment also reduced Detroit and Wayne County taxes.