Bridges, bridges, and more bridges

This Friday the State Advisory Committee on Historic Preservation will review the Willamette River Highway Bridges multiple property submittal.  This is a document on the significance of the ten major spans across the river in Multnomah County and includes the formal nomination of four bridges; Hawthorne, Morrison, Burnside and Broadway.  I started working on this project almost two years ago and in the process found a new appreciation for each of these amazing spans.  Almost every Oregonian knows the bridges in downtown Portland, from the “erector set” Marquam, to the soaring Fremont and most of us, I like to think, have our favorites.  They are an amazing group of spans, probably unmatched anywhere in the country, certainly on the West Coast, if only for their diversity.  From the Hawthorne, which is the oldest vertical lift bridge in the nation, to the St. Johns, the longest suspension bridge in the world when it was completed, to the Morrison, the first bascule bridge designed with open  piers to allow water to flow directly through them, Portland does bridges with panache.  It was fun to study these works, and honor to be able to document them for much-deserved recognition on the National Register of Historic Places.

If the Willamette Bridges are the pinnacle of bridge technology in the middle of Oregon (vying with McCullough’s coastal bridges for State-wide honors as a group), they surely are not the only spectacular spans in Oregon.  As I wrote many years ago, getting around the state Oregon, a state replete with creeks, rivers and crevices, without bridges would be darn near impossible.  And Oregon has always taken its roads, and its bridges, seriously.  We still do.  Covered Bridges, those comfortable, quaint, roofs over rivers were a popular form in Oregon where wood, just like rivers, can be easily found.  For years I have worked on the rehabilitation of numerous covered bridges, usually as a part of a team headed by the great guys at OBEC Consulting Engineers.  Together we’ve been involved with the rehab of award-winning projects like the Lowell Covered Bridge or, more recently, the Chambers Covered Railroad Bridge.

This week, on my way up to Portland, I will swing through north central Lane County, where the Deadwood Covered Bridge is soon to get a new shake roof and some other minor but much needed attention.  Deadwood, like so many of Oregon’s 50+ surviving covered bridges, has been bypassed by a typical slab, beam and girder (i.e. pretty boring) concrete span.  Thankfully the good people of Lane County had the vision, and the continued willingness, to retain the Deadwood, and a bunch of other covered bridges, for their history and charm.  Lane County has the largest collection of covered spans in Oregon, which as the largest collection of such spans in America west of the Mississippi River. 

The Bridges of Multnomah County

Back to working on Portland bridges again. There are lots of bridges there, across the Willamette, in downtown and after having drafted a context statement, a Multiple Property Submittal that covers ten of them, I am now nibbling away at the formal nomination of four spans owned by Multnomah County; the Hawthorne, Broadway, Burnside and Morrison.

Writing about these spans it is a struggle to avoid the use of superlatives. It’s an amazing collection Portland has put together, including works by some of America’s most renowned bridge engineers such as Gustav Lindenthal, Ralph Modjeski, David Steinman, Waddell and Harrington and Joseph Strauss. In Portland, between the upstream Sellwood and the downstream Fremont bridges one can find the oldest vertical lift span bridge in the United States (the Hawthorne), the ONLY double-vertical lift span in the world (the Steel Bridge), and the largest Rall Bascule bridge ever built (the Broadway). The St. Johns Bridge was the longest suspension span in the world when it was completed and, until very recently, the Fremont Bridge was the longest orthotropic tied-arch span in the world too. Each one of these bridges, aside from the incredible functional value that they bring to Portland, is in its own way something of a masterpiece, an amazing piece of engineering whether it’s the longest, oldest, first, or whatever other superlative that can be layered atop the simple fact that this is a great set of bridges. The fact that you can stand on one and, in most cases, see almost all the others, is just stunning.

We preservationists can be fairly cutting when the mood strikes. Efforts to save historic structures by relocating them in packs to safer, less pressured ground, are almost universally dismissed as “preservation round-ups.” In Portland, over the period of 1910 to 1973, the City, the County and the State of Oregon have effectively created what amounts to a “Bridge Round-Up.” And it’s a pretty spectacular assemblage.

Bridgetown

There are ten highway bridge spans across the Willamette River in Portland, connecting downtown with the eastside, and forming an important part of Portland's identity both economically, historically, and visually. The bridges standing today range in date from the 1910 Hawthorne Bridge to the Fremont, built in 1973. They represent a veritable "Who's Who" of American bridge engineers (David Steinman, Ralph Modjeski, Gustav Lindenthal and Waddell-Harrington…not to mention Joseph Strauss),  They serve as a sort of  one-spot shopping exhibit of bridge forms. There are deck trusses, vertical lifts, bascules, thru trusses, suspension and one of the longest tied-arch bridges in the country. 


Portland, a growing and bustling city, has continually "messed" with its bridges, to lengthen their approach spans, to widen their decks, to keep them a vital part of an ever-changing transportation system that began to serve trains, trolleys and foot traffic, evolved (or contra-wise) to serve automobiles and buses, and now, once again, in  some cases, again serves an electric powered trolley [MAX] along with cars, buses and bicyclists. One of the more recent changes involved the Morrison Bridge, built in 1958, and while that change was necessary to let Portlanders get across the river, it was determined to be an Adverse Effect under the Section 106 process. And, like all Adverse Effects, Multnomah County and the Oregon Department of Transportation had to develop a plan to "mitigate."

What they agreed to do, and what I am honored to be able to research and prepare on their behalf, is a National Register Multiple Property Submittal on the Willamette River Bridges of Portland. I have a little chart hanging in front of my computer, with each bridge's form, it's designer and "vital statistics" in an effort to keep them straight. So far it's only partially working but I'll get it eventually. I sure don't have any trouble remembering the St. Johns….an expensive, and comparatively under-used span that at least one historian termed a "mistake" from a financial standpoint. But it sure is a beautiful design.