Construction began on November 14, 1922, and from the start, financing proved as treacherous as the channel below. The first bank that had extended credit to the state government failed outright, forcing Santa Catarina to secure new loans under worse terms. American bankers maneuvered the state into absorbing the debts of the collapsed institution, a burden that compounded interest on an already staggering project. Luz pushed forward anyway. He would not live to see the result. On a day in 1924, twelve days after inaugurating a wooden replica erected in XV Square for the symbolic ceremony, the governor died. The bridge was originally to be called the Independence Bridge. After his death, it took his name instead - a posthumous tribute to the man whose political gamble had made it possible.

When the Hercílio Luz Bridge opened on May 13, 1926, it was the longest eyebar suspension span in the world. The total length reached 819.471 meters: 259 meters of viaduct from the island side, a central span of 339.471 meters, and 221 meters of viaduct from the mainland. Two towers rose 74 meters above sea level, their bases resting on foundations that consumed 14,250 cubic meters of concrete. The steel structure alone weighed approximately 5,000 tons. What made the design unusual was the stiffening truss. Instead of hanging below the roadway, it arched above it, meeting the eyebar chains at varying heights along the span. The American Bridge Company had brought its own experimental heat-treated eyebars to the project and pioneered stiffening techniques that saved material while increasing rigidity. A similar design - the Silver Bridge over the Ohio River - would collapse catastrophically in 1967 when a single eyebar failed, killing 46 people.

By the 1980s, two newer bridges - the Colombo Sales and the Pedro Ivo - had taken over the traffic between island and mainland, and the Hercílio Luz Bridge was showing its age. It closed in 1982 over safety concerns. A brief reprieve came in 1988, when it reopened to pedestrians, bicycles, and horse-drawn vehicles, but a 1990 engineering report ended even that modest use. The bridge closed completely on July 4, 1991. For the next twenty-eight years, the longest suspension bridge in Brazil stood silent over the channel - too beloved to demolish, too expensive to fix, too symbolic to ignore. In 1997, it was declared a historical and artistic monument. Restoration planning dragged through the 2000s, with approach-span work completed by 2008. The main span rehabilitation, contracted to Portuguese firm Teixeira Duarte, didn't begin until 2016.

The restoration was radical. Workers replaced the entire eyebar suspension system - the same technology whose failure had destroyed the Silver Bridge decades earlier - along with the pin joints at the tower bases. Four temporary midspan piers and an under-deck truss held the roadway aloft while the original suspension members came out piece by piece. The cost ballooned, echoing the financial chaos of the original construction. But this time, the bridge survived its budget. On December 30, 2019, Florianópolis got its bridge back. More than 200,000 people packed both sides of the channel to watch the reopening. Bungee jumpers launched themselves from the span as the crowd roared. Pedestrians and cyclists crossed first; buses and emergency vehicles followed in January 2020. By March, the bridge carried all traffic again - two lanes, plus bicycle and pedestrian paths. The final cost of the project and the repayment of the original American loans, completed in 1978, bookended a financial saga spanning most of a century.