Historic Hood River
Bridge Construction
12-17-2014
Notes
Here’s another fine picture of the construction of the Hood River- White Salmon bridge. This one is dated to October 1924. Hard to believe the bridge was open to traffic two months later.
The ruin of a very substantial brick and masonry structure has me scratching my head. We’ve seen the mill that was briefly located on this spot, but I can’t imagine that’s part of the mill structure.
ralph
Is the top photo looking Southward and the bottom looking Northward?
l.e.
Are we up on the hill, east of the Button home?
It is hard to tell if the railroad tracks are in front of us or behind us.
Longshot
I find it amazing that with the lack of any obvious development on the north shore at that time that anyone would have thought a bridge would pay for itself. A one way toll at that time must have represented a hour or two of work for a typical car owner and must have been a very big expense for a trucking company.
l.e.
Grumble, grumble. I just did a long post with links to HHR photos and I got deleted for spam. I will try numbers on this one.
There appears to be a large rock outcropping on the east side of the bridge, that is no longer there. It was separate from the Button Hill.
Some of you here have good eagle eyes, so maybe you can tell better than I.
A 1930’s aerial photo. #72
A 1924 photo from Burdoin Mtn. #512
It is hard to tell with this 1930’s aerial composite: #906
You can kind of see it with this 1890’s photo #222
With the development of the port area, it becomes flat and nondescript.
Three views. #623 and #848 and #688
The rock structure seems large for water cistern, but that is a possibility.
spinsur
the corps of engineers map, water level dated 1934, indicates an "old reservoir" on top of a rock knob, with a "residence’ below, and closer to river much as this pic shows. I think the camera is foreshortening the distance from reservoir to house.
Kenn
Bridging a river at this wide a point was very rare in that era, especially in an area of low density population. There would be much upkeep ahead for these long wood approaches, any ideas when they were replaced with concrete piers? Thanks for posting these great photos.
Jeffrey Bryant
Bridge Steel Being Placed, Hood River Glacier, 1924-06-26, page 1.
https://oregonnews.uoregon.edu/lccn/sn97071110/1924-06-26/ed-1/seq-1/