Historic Hood River
Wooden Bridge over the Hood RIver
Notes
This fine view of the old wooden bridge across the Hood River dates from about 1915. This bridge was much lower than modern bridge, leaving a steep climb up to Button Junction.
Regular HHR readers might remember I posted this same image a while back, but this fresh scan shows the benefit of doing things the “right” way. Compare this new view with this old one and you’ll see why even the photographs in our collection which were previously scanned are being rescanned.
If you think this new version looks good, remember you’re only seeing a fraction of the resolution of our new digital archive. The archived version of this image has 130 times the pixel resolution of the version you see above. We look forward to sharing the high resolution images in the future.
l.e.
Oh yes! What a difference!
Must be late spring or early summer. Looks like high water.
You can see a pipe and a dock on the opposite shore.
Charlott
Gives such a good view of the road climbing along there where Tum-a-lum is. That pipe would be running up to Button farm on top. You can see some of the farm buildings in the trees.
This was taken right along the railroad track as you barely see cars on the right hand side.
Agree, definitely as much better quality of photo.
Arlen Sheldrake
MORE train please! 🙂 And yes, what a difference between the two photo resolutions…….sure understand the need for rescanning. This is an excellent photo and certainly could be labeled the "temporary road bridge across the HR", no wonder it washed out. Arlen
spinsur
hmm, just for discussion, I don’t think I, nor would the folks of the time, consider it "temporary". When zoomed in, note the length of the arch over the main channel, w/o supports, from concrete abutment to the east bank. that’s pretty substantial, and rather long, bridge construction for the early 1900’s. I think it’s spindliness is due to the light weight of horse drawn and newly developed horseless carriages and light trucks. It didn’t need to be as beefy as a railroad bridge. But if, for instance, it is, say, average higher high water in the picture, it wouldn’t take much of a higher water event bringing down trees and logs to take out the bottom chord of the bridge and with so few years of history of the river at that time, it was probably bound to happen..
Arthur
Arlen– thanks for the request. I’ll have to pull together a "train week" later this summer for all the rail enthusiasts. The site is queued up through mid-June, but I’ll get something rail related after that.
Arthur
Concerning the length of the bridge– remember it continued some distance over land to the west, crossing the tracks and floodplain before reaching State Street.
l.e.
Isn’t this the first bridge photo we have seen with the arch?
#195 taken in 1896 isn’t the same bridge. No supports in the water.
#77 taken in 1916 might be the same bridge but no arch.
Arthur…..#215 is not in the the "bridge" tag. No arch.
Arthur
Not so sure, l.e.– I think in #77 the bridge is washed out to the west of the first concrete pier, so we don’t see the truss section of the bridge. I think you see the start of the "arch" on the right side. #195 is at much lower water, and we’re only seeing the suspended truss section through the gap in the RR bridge.
Kenn
East abutment of this and the concrete arch bridge still exist on the east bank.