PlacesPages: Longview #37: Lewis & Clark Bridge

Lewis & Clark Bridge on September 5, 2005.

Originally called simply the Longview Bridge, this impressive structure was designed by Joseph B. Strauss. Strauss is noted for designing over 100 bridges, including many of Chicago's lift bridges over the Chicago River, as well as the operating mechanism for Portland's Burnside Bridge. He is also known for another bridge you may have heard of: San Francisco's Golden Gate Bridge. But before he built the Golden Gate, Strauss built this one.

Before the bridge, the only way to get across the Columbia River between Kelso and Rainier was by boat. On June 4, 1922, A. E. Hayes and Ed Cole inaugurated an automobile ferry between Rainier and Kelso. The ferry landing on the Washington side was on the east shore of the Cowlitz River in South Kelso. This ferry had a toll of $2 for a one-way trip. By June 23, they were operating three boats of 8, 22, and 26 car capacity, with a fourth soon to enter service. Night service began the week of July 4th.

Long-Bell ferry Oregon at the Rainier ferry slip.
(Michael Clark collection, used with permission)

On July 16, 1922, the Long-Bell Lumber Company placed its own ferry in service between Rainier and the new city of Longview, which was still under construction. The new ferry was a 30’ by 90’ barge pulled by the tugboat Star. The Long-Bell ferry was faster and less expensive than the service operated by Hayes and Cole, and their operation shut down on July 18, 1922.

View of A Street in Rainier showing the entrance to ferry slip.(Michael Clark collection, used with permission)

In 1923, Long-Bell launched an improved ferry service using two newly-built ferries, the Washington and the Oregon. They were built by St. Helens Shipbuilding and each had a capacity of 25 to 30 cars and 150 passengers. The Longview ferry slip was at the foot of Oregon Way, near where the bridge is today, and the Rainier slip was downtown at the foot of First Street. The ferries could complete a roundtrip in 40 minutes including loading and unloading time, and with both in service they could offer 20 minute service. The Washington was placed in service on June 16, 1923. The Oregon was placed in service on July 9, 1923.

Long-Bell ferry at the Rainier ferry slip.
(Michael Clark collection, used with permission)

While two ferries were needed during the summer season, one ferry was adequate for the rest of the year. After the 1929 summer season, with the bridge to be completed before the next summer, the Oregon was sold to the Oregon Highway Department and was towed on September 22 to North Bend in Coos County, where it began operation on October 1. The Washington remained in operation until the bridge opened in 1930.

Long-Bell ferry on the Columbia River.
(Michael Clark collection, used with permission)

A bridge across the Columbia River was first envisioned in 1919, and a serious proposal was first made in 1921. The Oregon Highway Department conducted a study beginning in the winter of 1921 and in January 1923 recommended that a five-span bridge be built across the river at Rainier. Initially, Portland was in favor of the project, but Portland soon felt threatened by Longview’s growth. In 1925, Congress passed an act authorizing the bridge, with the provision that both states agreed. Washington approved, but the Port of Portland’s concern over Longview’s growth led Oregon to oppose the bridge. In 1926 a new bill was introduced in Congress to authorize private parties to fund and build the bridge. The bill was passed by Congress in January 1927 and signed into law by President Calvin Coolidge.

The Columbia River-Longview Bridge Company was formed by William D. Comer and Wesley Vandercook. Comer was the president of W. D. Comer & Company, a building and loan association in Seattle, and Vandercook was Long-Bell’s Chief Engineer. Comer served as President of the new company, with Vandercook as Secretary and Arnold Foster of San Francisco as Treasurer. The financing was handled by Kimball & Company of New York and J.S. Watson of San Francisco. Comer and Vandercook promoted the bridge and raised money for its construction through the sale of public bonds and stock. Initially, funds came in slowly, and Comer and Vandercook had to spend their own money to hire crews to clear the land for the approaches and officially begin construction before the deadline set in the bill passed by Congress.

Joseph Srauss’s original design for the bridge had a vertical clearance of 155 feet above the river and a span of 750 feet between the center piers. Portland convinced the Department of Defense to require that the bridge be tall enough to allow all U.S. Naval vessels in existence, including the tall-masted USS Constitution with a height of 187 feet, to safely pass underneath. This required a redesign to raise the vertical clearance to 195 feet and the center span to 1,125 feet between the piers, increasing the cost of the bridge by at least $1 million. With the cost of the bridge estimated at over $5 million, Portland was hoping the bridge promoters would be unable to raise the necessary funds. There were originally plans to make the bridge a railroad bridge as well as a highway bridge, but with the higher clearance and added cost, the railroad plans were abandoned.

On October 13, 1928, the Pacific Bridge Company of Portland, Oregon, began excavating for the piers. On October 16, It was announced that Bethlehem Steel Company of Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, had signed the contract to furnish the 12,500 tons of steel for the bridge. Bethlehem was also awarded the general contract for the bridge, the G. F. Breckerly as Bethlehem’s engineer-in-charge. Bethlehem subcontracted the rest of the work to various subcontracting firms. Additional steel was fabricated by the Wallace Bridge & Structural Steel Company of Seattle, and the steel was erected by J.H. Pomeroy & Company of Seattle. The timber approaches and concrete deck were built by Lindstrum & Feigensen of Portland, Oregon. Road grading was by Henry G. Niblett, toll buildings by F.W. Clearman & Company, lighting system by Charles Langlais, and fenders by F.S. Booth & Company. The Strauss Engineering Corporation handled the design and supervision of construction, with Joseph Strauss as president and chief engineer, C.E. Paine as vice president and engineer-in-charge, and J.S. Watson as resident engineer. The first concrete was poured in October 1928, and on October 30, it was announced that all financing had been completed for the total cost of $5,800,000 and all contracts had been awarded.

The first piles were driven on the Oregon side on April 15, 1929, and on the Washington side on April 24, 1929. The first steel was placed on the Oregon side on June 5, 1929, and on the Washington side on June 27, 1929. On July 4, 1929, Joseph Strauss announced that the structure was 51% complete. By August 25, 1929, the Washington approach was practically complete and the erection of the anchor spans was progressing. The bridge was built from both ends, and on February 13, 1930, the first girder connected the two sectors in the middle of the span.

View of the Longview Bridge under construction.
(Michael Clark collection, used with permission)

The bridge was dedicated and opened March 29, 1930. At the dedication, Governors A. W. Norblad of Oregon and Roland Hartley of Washington gave short speeches at the center of the bridge, and at 2 p.m., President Herbert Hoover pressed a gold telegraph key from the White House that unfurled a flag and dropped a guillotine to cut a ribbon, formally opening the bridge. Cars were lined up from Rainier as far as Goble, and by midnight, when the tolls were imposed, 11,327 cars had crossed the bridge. The tollbooth for the bridge was on the Washington side. The toll for a car and driver was originally 80 cents with 15 cents for each passenger.

The completed bridge was 8,289 feet long, including its timber approaches. The original design, from north to south, consisted of: 2,620 feet of wooden approach trestle, a 40-foot steel girder approach span, a 40-foot steel tower span, a 168-foot steel Warren deck truss approach span, a 760-foot steel truss anchor span, a 380-foot steel truss cantilever span, a 440-foot suspended steel Warren truss span, a 380-foot steel truss cantilever span, a 760-foot steel truss anchor span, two 337-foot steel Warren deck truss approach spans, an 84-foot steel Warren deck truss approach span, a 168-foot steel Warren deck truss approach span, a 28-foot steel girder approach span, and 1,800 feet of curved wooden approach trestle. (This actually adds up to 8,342 feet. The 1,800-foot length of the wooden approach trestle on the Oregon side may have been an approximate measure; if it were actually 1,747 feet, the numbers would add up to the 8,289 feet.) The main span of the bridge is 2,722 feet long. The center cantilever span is suspended from towers 1,200 feet apart with 196.5 feet of clearance above mean low water. The bridge’s highest point 330 feet above the river. (Today, the bridge is listed as being 340 feet tall, with 210 feet of clearance over the river. This apparent discrepancy may be explained by changes in the river level caused by the dams built further up the river in the intervening years.) The deck is 34.1 feet wide with 20 feet of vertical clearance.

The bridge was said to be the longest and tallest cantilever span in North America at the time. Its closest competitors at the time of construction were said to be the Strauss-designed Montreal Harbour Bridge (renamed the Jacques Cartier Bridge in 1934) and the Albert Gallatin Memorial Bridge over the Monongahela River at Point Marion, Pennsylvania, near Pittsburgh. Both were also completed in 1930. The Montreal Harbor Bridge has a main span of 1,937 feet, consisting of two 420-foot anchor spans, two 354-foot cantilever arms, and a 378.5-foot suspended span, and had a vertical clearance above the water of 40 feet (raised to 120 feet in 1958). The Albert Gallatin Memorial Bridge was much smaller, with a total length of 810 feet and a main span of 464 feet.

Not mentioned is the much longer Quebec Bridge in Montreal, completed in 1919. The Quebec Bridge has a total length of 3,239 feet with a cantilever span of 1,800 feet between the piers, consisting of two 580-foot cantilever arms and a 640-foot suspended central span. The Quebec Bridge has a height of 340 feet, with 150 feet of vertical clearance over the water. There are a number of possible reasons why the Quebec Bridge was discounted when the Longview Bridge was declared the longest and highest cantilever bridge in North America. First, while the Quebec Bridge has a longer cantilever span than the Longview Bridge, the Longview Bridge has additional steel approach spans on either side that, when included, increase its length to 3,922 feet (not including the timber approaches), longer than the Quebec Bridge. The Longview Bridge also has more vertical clearance above the water than the Quebec Bridge. The Longview Bridge was a highway bridge (as were Montreal Harbor Bridge and the Albert Gallatin Memorial Bridge) while the Quebec Bridge was a railroad-only bridge until 1949. Finally, the Quebec Bridge used a very different cantilever design with supporting truss structures both above the deck as a superstructure and below the deck as a substructure and a suspended span that was built off-site and lifted into place in one piece. The Longview Bridge (along with the Montreal Harbor Bridge and the Albert Gallatin Memorial Bridge) used a cantilever design with only a superstructure truss above the deck and resting on vertical towers and a suspended span that was assembled in place. As a result, the Quebec Bridge may have been considered an entirely different type of bridge than the Longview Bridge at the time, making the case for the Longview Bridge to be called the longest of its type. In any case, the Longview Bridge was still the longest cantilever bridge in the United States.

Plaques at each end of the bridge read as follows:

COLUMBIA RIVER
LONGVIEW BRIDGE
COMPLETED 1930
BUILT BY
WILLIAM D. COMER
AND
WESLEY VANDERCOOK
TOTAL LENGTH OF SPAN - INCLUDING APPROACHES - 1 1/2 MILES
LENGTH OF MAIN SPAN                                                   1200 FEET
MAXIMUM VERTICAL CLEARANCE                                      196 FEET
HEIGHT OF TOWERS ABOVE WATER                                 330 FEET

GENERAL CONTRACTOR
BETHLEHEM STEEL COMPANY

SUB - CONTRACTORS
WALLACE BRIDGE & STRUCTURAL STEEL CO.          STEEL FABRICATOR
BETHLEHEM STEEL CO.                                            STEEL FABRICATOR
J. H. POMEROY & CO.                                                     STEEL ERECTOR
PACIFIC BRIDGE CO.                                                          FOUNDATIONS
LINDSTROM & FEIGENSEN                                                  APPROACHES

ENGINEERS
STRAUSS ENGINEERING CORPORATION

After the bridge opened, private passenger ferries continued to operate for a number of years for those looking for a less expensive way to cross the river to work at the mills. One of these was the 42-foot Elsinore, which was operated by A. Wellington McCollam and had a capacity of 35 passengers. It was originally built around 1914 by Portland shipbuilding O.P. Graham for E.A. Allen. Around 1942 Allen sold the Elsinore to Ferris Brooks, who resold it to McCollam. The Elsinore ran until 1952 and was burned as a bonfire for Rainier Daze on July 21, 1961.

Within a year of its opening, the bridge had its first suicide jumper. And it was someone from Portland! That's right, in March 1931 a man named Wilfrid Hill drove all the way from Portland to Rainier to kill himself (though on the way he attempted to throw himself in front of a train at St. Helens, but was foiled by the train crew). The suicide was not discovered until the next morning (March 17) when the morning bus across the bridge discovered a Ford roadster abandoned on the bridge with its lights on, and a suicide note was found at Hill’s home in Portland.

In August 1933, the recently-restored USS Constitution visited Portland, Kalama, and Longview, passing under the bridge and justifying its 195-foot vertical clearance. Coincidentally, the USS Constitution’s restoration had included new masts of Douglas Fir milled at the Westport Lumber Company in nearby Westport, Oregon.

Lewis & Clark Bridge on July 12, 2008.

The bridge’s status as the longest cantilever bridge in the United States did not last long. In 1936, the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge opened, and the cantilever bridge at the east end became the longest cantilever bridge in the United States, with a span of 1,400 feet. It would retain the record until the 1958.

Lewis & Clark Bridge on July 12, 2008.

With the start of World War II, a guard shack was built on the Oregon side of the bridge, and soldiers began riding across the bridge with every car to prevent sabotage. At night a blackout was enforced on the bridge.

Lewis & Clark Bridge on February 24, 2011.

Originally the bridge was a private venture, owned and operated by the Columbia River-Longview Bridge Company. The bridge company had struggled financially in its early years. By World War II, the bridge had become profitable, but just barely, and the timber approaches were in need of replacement. The state of Washington bought the bridge in 1947 for $2,250,000, financed through public bonds. A portion of the 1947 revenue bond sale allocated for refurbishment was used initially to replace the north 84 feet of the south timber trestle approach on the Oregon side. The remaining curved portion of the south timber approach became the state of Oregon’s maintenance responsibility. In 1950, the entire north timber trestle approach was rebuilt as 23 steel-beam spans with concrete decking measuring 1,500 feet in total length. Bethlehem Pacific Coast Steel was the fabricator and Guy F. Atkinson Company of Portland was the contractor. Total cost for the project was $810,000. In 1951, a retaining wall was added to the north approach at a cost of $130,000.

Lewis & Clark Bridge on February 25, 2011.

When the state of Washington bought the bridge in 1947, the toll was $1.00. Interestingly enough, the toll decreased over the following years to 75 cents, then 60 cents, and finally to 50 cents on July 1, 1957. The lower tolls increased traffic on the bridge, and allowed the bonds to be paid off at a faster rate than expected.

Lewis & Clark Bridge on April 30, 2011.

In 1963, an 84’ steel beam span with concrete deck replaced the 1947 north section of the south approach trestle. The state of Washington built it at a cost of $74,000. At the same time, Oregon replaced the rest of the south timber trestle approach with embankment.

Lewis & Clark Bridge on April 30, 2011.

On October 19, 1965, the tolls paid off the cost of the bridge 12 years ahead of schedule, and the governors of the two states, Mark Hatfield of Oregon and Dan Evans of Washington, attended a ceremonial burning of the public bonds at the toll plaza to mark the removal of the bridge tolls.

Lewis & Clark Bridge on July 14, 2012.

On July 6, 1980, Washington Governor Dixie Lee Ray signed Senate Bill No. 3219 into law, rededicating and renaming the Longview Bridge the Lewis & Clark Bridge. It was placed on the National Register of Historic Places on July 16, 1982. In 1985, the existing cast-in-place sidewalks were replaced with precast sidewalks.

Lewis & Clark Bridge on July 14, 2012.

Age and increasing traffic levels required that the bridge be redecked from January 2003 to August 2004 at a cost of $29.8 million.

Lewis & Clark Bridge on July 14, 2012.

When adjusted for inflation, the bridge's original construction cost equals about $60 million in 2004 dollars. So, just redecking the bridge cost half of what the entire bridge cost. And it took longer.

Lewis & Clark Bridge on July 14, 2012.

In 2006, a multi-phase repainting project began. The bridge had last been painted in 1984. Repainting of the Oregon approach was completed in February 2009. The piers in the river and the towers on the Washington side were painted from April 7, 2009 to December 2, 2010 at a cost of 6.7 million. Painting of the superstructure began June 30, 2010, and was completed in November 2013 at an estimated cost of $40 million. The entire painting project cost $56 million dollars. The bridge is painted a color called Washington Gray.

Workers on the Lewis & Clark Bridge on October 29, 2013.

The Lewis & Clark Bridge carries an estimated 21,000 vehicles per day, 13% of which are trucks. As of 2013, the Lewis & Clark Bridge was the 12th longest cantilever bridge in the world and the 7th longest cantilever bridge in United States. The original eastern cantilever section of the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge was replaced in 2013 by a new suspension bridge, and when the demolition of the cantilever bridge is completed, the Lewis & Clark Bridge should become the 11th longest cantilever bridge in the world and the 6th longest cantilever bridge in the United States.

Workers on the Lewis & Clark Bridge on October 29, 2013.

Continue to 38: Harry Morgan Bridge…

Tuesday, May 6, 2014

Longview #37: Lewis & Clark Bridge

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