The recently opened bridge connecting Brunswick and Topsham will likely be named to honor the Indigenous history of the region.

At a meeting Monday night, the Brunswick Town Council signed off on the new name, the Pejepscot Falls Bridge, which was recommended by a committee of Brunswick and Topsham residents who oversaw the bridge design. The Topsham Select Board approved the committee’s name recommendation last week.

The towns’ proposals will be sent to the Maine Legislature, which has the final authority to name bridges. The new bridge does not currently have an official name.

The new span connecting Brunswick and Topsham officially opened in December, replacing the nearly 100-year-old Frank J. Wood Bridge.

Construction began in April 2023 after the Maine Department of Transportation rated the FJW Bridge in poor condition. The project was initially held up by legal delays as historic preservation groups sought to stop demolition of the 1932 bridge. The challenges were ultimately rejected in federal court.

Pejepscot, the likely new namesake of the bridge, is an Abenaki word used to describe the lower Androscoggin River in the area of Brunswick and Topsham. Though there are several translations of the word, it can be interpreted as “long, rocky rapids” or “crooked like a diving snake.”

The proposed name also pays homage to the falls, visible today just below the Brunswick-Topsham Dam.

The Brunswick-Topsham Bridge Design Advisory Committee, along with local history groups, all offered their support for the new name.

“(Pejepscot) is an evocative and meaningful word that invites locals and visitors alike to learn more about the town’s local history and heritage,” Larissa Picard, executive director of the Brunswick-based Pejepscot History Center, wrote in a letter to the town council supporting the new name.

The Frank J. Wood Bridge, one of many bridges that have connected Brunswick and Topsham throughout history, took its name from a local farmer who suggested the location for its construction.

“For generations before European contact, the Abenaki gathered at the falls right here — at the foot of where this bridge now stands — to harvest salmon and other fish as they swam upriver to spawn,” Topsham’s History Committee wrote in a letter to the Brunswick Town Council.

“This location is, without exaggeration, the single most important site for the Abenaki in all of what is now Brunswick and Topsham. Giving the bridge a name rooted in that history is the least we can do to honor that enduring presence,” the committee wrote.