Historic Hood River

Notes

When I first started the photo project in 2011 a missing piece of history would really bother me, but I eventually learned to set the mysteries aside and wait for the answers to pop up on their own.  Today’s post resolves a mystery about the Hood River White Salmon Bridge.

We know when the bridge was first built in 1924, almost half of it was a “temporary” wood structure.  In 1937-1940 the north approach wood trestle was replaced with a steel truss on concrete piers, and a lift span was added.  We know by the flood of 1948 all but a very small piece of wood trestle on the south approach had already been replaced by a steel and concrete structure, but I didn’t know when.  The Port’s records claimed it was done in the 1930s when the north approach was built, but none of the photos from that era– including the completed project with a functioning lift span– showed any sign of that construction.

Last week I found this negative in a stack about an inch thick.  Someone has labeled it with the date October 16, 1946, which is a little too precise to just be someone’s guess.  What we see is a preassembled steel truss and roadbed supported by wood falsework (temporary supports).  Concrete piers are already in place in the line of the old wood trestle, and a Gilpin Construction crane is in place.  The old wood is ready to be removed so the crane can lift the steel truss into place on top of the concrete piers.

This steel truss section is very obvious when you cross the bridge because of the way the roadway rises within the truss.  The only thing which is different today is the last bit of wood trestle was replace with rock and gravel fill to support the tollbooth and this small section of the roadway south of the steel truss in this picture.  I believe that work was performed on the early 1960s when the fill was being placed for the Eddie Mays Inn (now Best Western Hood River).

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