Historic Hood River
Bridge Construction
4-14-2015
Notes
Here’s the earliest picture I’ve seen of the construction of the Hood River White Salmon Bridge in 1923. The temporary structure is in place to get workers and materials to the future site of the concrete supports.
Category: default
Tags: 1920s, bridge, Columbia River, construction, Hood River White Salmon Interstate Bridge, Port of Hood River
Tags: 1920s, bridge, Columbia River, construction, Hood River White Salmon Interstate Bridge, Port of Hood River
Dan
Never seen this shot before, very cool.
L.E.
Do you think photo #965 might be earlier? The boardwalk isn’t completed and oil drums are still sitting on the bank.
You can see Cook Grade take off from the main road and start up the hill.
L.E.
At the cost of $413,000, maybe we could have enough bake sales to build a new one.
Check out the toll rate!!! And, what is a cattle span?
The Hood River News, Hood River, OR., August 3, 1923, page 1
HOOD RIVER BRIDGE CONTRACT IS LET
As already announced in last week’s News, the financing of the Hood River-White Salmon bridge has been completed and work is to start immediately, machinery and materials now being assembled preparatory to being dispatched to the base of operations here.
The contract for the building of the bridge has been let to the Gilpin Construction Co., of Portland, the company which built the big bridge at Young’s Bay, near the mouth of the Columbia. The contract price is $375,000. In addition to this, engineering and other expenses will, it is expected, bringing the total cost of the bridge to $413,000.
In the Portland campaign for placing of stocks, while the initial work was done by Victor Johnson, the strenuous work of the campaign fell on the shoulders of the Hilmar Papst and Julius L. Meier, both of Portland.
Thus, the bridge, originally submitted by Messrs. Gray & Chandler, Seattle engineers, and first introduced to Hood River through the efforts of Truman Butler, is now fully assured. The financing of the bridge has been arranged by the sale of first mortgage bonds to the extent of $300,000, and preferred stock to the amount of $176,000. Of this latter amount $90,000 worth of stock was subscribed by the people of this section on the North and South side of the Columbia.
The trustees of the company, the Oregon-Washington Bridge Co., are Leslie Butler, Hood River, chairman, E.O. Blanchar, Hood River, John H. Laing, Portland; Elbert M. Chandler, Olympia; and Henry L. Gray and Paul C. Harper, of Seattle.
Gray & Chandler will be engineers for the structure, with C.B. Wing, professor of structural engineering at Stanford university of the Pacific Coast, as consultant engineer.
The bridge will consist of one cattle span 262 feet long, set 44½ feet above extreme high water, high enough to eliminate the necessity of a draw, and nine steel approach spans of the deck type with traffic on top, each span 208 feet long. Seven of these spans will be on the Oregon side of the channel span and two on the Washington side. Timber approaches will connect the bridge with the shore on each side. The total length of the steel bridge will be approximately 2134 feet and the timber approaches 1600 feet, making a total length of structure of about 3700 feet, or nearly three-quarters of a mile. Eleven piers of reinforced concrete will be sunk in the river to carry the spans. The roadway will be 20 feet in width, exclusive of sidewalk, and will be of heavy planking designed to carry the heaviest traffic.
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L.E.
Oooops, sorry, I didn’t mean to post that big long thing. You can remove it Arthur.
Dan
Nice find L.E. and an interesting read, thanks for posting it.
Arthur
#965 must be later, as the concrete supports are in place.
Kenn
Great post, LE, but I have never noticed the sidewalks mentioned in the last sentence.
L.E.
The Toll costs:
The original charges were 10 cents for persons over 7 years of age, 20 cents for one person and an animal, driven or ridden, 10 cents a head for a drove of animals numbering 10 or under or four cents a head for a larger herd.
Cost for vehicles including the driver, were 20 cents for bicycles; 50 cents for motorcycles; 75 cents for automobiles; 75 cents to $5 for trucks depending on weight; and $5 for tractors.
Animal-drawn vehicles, including drivers, cost 75 cents and up, depending on the number of animals doing the pulling.
I can’t take any credit for any of this information. Jeffrey Elmer has made numerous newspaper clippings about the bridge construction available online. The link below is for Feb. 1923. If you change the number of the month, you can work your way through the clippings for the year.
http://homepages.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~westklic/hrwsb223.html
1123 tells about the north end of the approach will be six feet from C.D. Moore’s house. Changes are being considered.
Kenn
Thanks to LE for all the information, some additions to my bridge albums. Wondering when the gas line was added to the bridge.
roger benn
does anyone know how long it took to build the1924 bridge?
Arthur
Construction began in October 1923 and was complete in December 1924. It was suspended several times for weather.