A bridge crossing of Omsundet was initially proposed in 1875 by the town engineer in Kristiansund,
colonel Christian Fredrik Bødtker, together with a bridge crossing of
Nordsundet, but no bridges were built. The long original bridge is a steel
through arch bridge. The Omsund Bridge was opened for traffic in April 1940, but with no
opening ceremony because of
World War II and
the invasion of Norway. Local young men just tore down the barricades in the middle of the night. On 22 April 1940,
German bombers tried to destroy the new bridge, but missed and managed only to kill the 15-year-old boy Ingolf Helge Vatten on a
bicycle several hundred meters away on Frei, and set the
forest on fire on Nordlandet. Remains of one of the bombs that caused the
wildfire are on display next to the
abutment. In May that year, the new bridge was crucial during the
emergency evacuation caused by the burning of Kristiansund. This bridge to the island of
Frei made it possible to shorten the
ferry between Kristiansund and
Gjemnes Municipality on the mainland by , when a new road crossing Frei to Kvitnes on
Flatsetøya was completed in 1951. The ferry was finally replaced with the
undersea Freifjord Tunnel in 1992 as part of the
Kristiansund Mainland Connection. The old bridge was replaced in 1981, but it finally opened officially in a ceremony on 24 April 2005, 65 years late, and 24 years after it was replaced. It was then made accessible again for
pedestrians and
cyclists, and protected as an important sample of Norwegian bridges built in the 1930s. ==Current bridge==