Historic Hood River
100 Years Later
Notes
How many of you helped make history yesterday by walking across the Hood River White Salmon Bridge? We were all part of a reenactment of the December 6, 1924 opening, which started with Hood River and Klickitat county chairs exchanging boxes of fruit, mayors of our cities shaking hands, and then masses of residents from both shores meeting in the middle of the bridge. I really like the way The Hood River Glacier described it in 1924:
Pioneers from both sides of the river gathered, looking up and down the mighty canyon, recalling how less than 25 years ago the journey across the river could only be attempted by canoe.
“And I just wonder,” said M. D. Odell, “how long it will be before this steel span is antedated. In 10 or 15 years from now we may be flying across the river in numbers as large are now crossing by automobile.”
When the crowds of mid-Columbia folk, those from the North Bank and those from the Oregon shore, who hereafter will be made close neighbors, had finished their visiting they hurried to their automobiles, strung along the full length of the bridge. Washington folk proceeded to hurry to Hood River and those of Oregon, some of whom had never crossed the river before, motored on to White Salmon or the Heights above Underwood. Mid-Columbia Oregon and Washington folk learned more about each other in just a few hours Saturday than they had learned in all of the past 20 years.
Bridge was free the first day. The following day they started collecting a toll of 75 cents per car. 10 cents to walk across, 20 cents to ride a bike, 20 cents to cross with your horse or cow.
In it’s first year of operation the bridge served 28,398 pedestrians, 4,065 livestock, 63,722 autos, 6 buses, 257 motorcycles, 8,830 trucks, and 424 vehicles. I’m not sure what “vehicles” means. Perhaps that includes bicycles? That’s approximately 105,000 users, compared with an annual traffic of 4 million today. Of course today the traffic is entirely motor vehicles, with no pedestrians or livestock.
Any guesses about what the traffic mix and user count on the bridge will be in 2124? I smiled at Mr. Odell’s prediction, but it’s worth remembering he was born before the Civil War. He had seen an awful lot during his life.
Tags: 2020s, bridge, centennial, Hood River White Salmon Interstate Bridge, parade
Jeffrey Bryant
Years from now we will be trying to identify the people in this photo. Can any names be provided now?
Arthur Babitz
Good point Jeffrey. I recognize two Hood River City Council members: Mark Zanmiller in red on the left near the railing, and Grant Polson to his left. Grant is carrying his infant daughter Piper in a carrier.
Arthur Babitz
I should add the photograph was taken by Klickitat County commissioner Jacob Anderson, standing on the back of my Model T truck which was sitting on the bridge.
kmb
I am having a hard time imagining how the livestock were shepherded across the bridge with automobiles passing by.
Arthur Babitz
kmb, I suspect most of the livestock were either individuals with a horse or a single cow, like we saw on the ferries. Traffic was about 1/40th today’s levels, so I don’t think the automobiles would have had any trouble passing the occasional cow.
Caleb Woodruff
I’m in that picture!
Jeffrey to be fair you could feed the image into facial recognition software and probably identify 80+% of the faces that are large enough.