The Snake River Bridge (also known as the Lyons Ferry Bridge), is located on State Route 261 at the confluence of the

Snake Snakes are elongated, Limbless vertebrate, limbless, carnivore, carnivorous reptiles of the suborder Serpentes . Like all other Squamata, squamates, snakes are ectothermic, amniote vertebrates covered in overlapping Scale (zoology), scales. Ma ...

and

Palouse River The Palouse River is a tributary of the Snake River in Washington (state), Washington and Idaho, in the Northwestern United States, northwest United States. It flows for U.S. Geological Survey. National Hydrography Dataset high-resolution flowline ...

s, near

Starbuck, Washington Starbuck is a town in Columbia County, Washington, United States. The population was 129 at the 2010 census. History Named for railroad official W. H. Starbuck, the town was originally a junction on the main line of the Oregon Railroad and N ...

, USA. The bridge is listed on the

National Register of Historic Places The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the United States federal government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures and objects deemed worthy of preservation for their historical significance or "great artistic v ...

in 1982 and is located next to

Lyons Ferry Park Lyons Ferry State Park is a public recreation area located near the confluence of the Snake and Palouse rivers, northwest of Starbuck, Washington. The state park is on Route 261 abreast of Lake Herbert G. West, a reservoir on the Snake Rive ...

Original construction

It was originally constructed in 1927 and known as the Vantage Ferry Bridge, where it carried the

North Central Highway Primary State Highways were major state highways in the U.S. state of Washington used in the early 20th century. They were created as the first organized road numbering system in the state in stages between 1905 and 1937 and used until the 1964 ...

over the

Columbia River The Columbia River (Upper Chinook: ' or '; Sahaptin: ''Nch’i-Wàna'' or ''Nchi wana''; Sinixt dialect'' '') is the largest river in the Pacific Northwest region of North America. The river rises in the Rocky Mountains of British Columbia, C ...

in Vantage, replacing a four-car

ferry A ferry is a ship, watercraft or amphibious vehicle used to carry passengers, and sometimes vehicles and cargo, across a body of water. A passenger ferry with many stops, such as in Venice, Italy, is sometimes called a water bus or water taxi ...

. By 1923, the ferry was transporting 50,000 people across the river annually, and it was clear that a bridge was needed to replace it. Originally planned to be a privately constructed

toll bridge A toll bridge is a bridge where a monetary charge (or ''toll'') is required to pass over. Generally the private or public owner, builder and maintainer of the bridge uses the toll to recoup their investment, in much the same way as a toll road. ...

, it was strongly opposed by Washington Governor Louis F. Hart because it would be a toll bridge on a taxpayer-supported highway. Not only that, but the state also stood to lose $900,000 in federal funds for the North Central Highway if a toll bridge were to be built. Instead, the state approved funding for its own bridge. However, the construction of the Wanapum Dam downriver of the bridge in the 1960s flooded the town of Vantage, and state officials decided to replace the existing two-lane bridge, which had become unsafe for high volume traffic, with a new four-lane bridge. The old bridge was dismantled and put into storage. Meanwhile, at Lyons Ferry, crossings of the Snake River were done by ferry, but the construction of the

Lower Monumental Dam Lower Monumental Lock and Dam is a hydroelectric, concrete, run-of-the-river dam in the northwest United States. Located on the lower Snake River in southeast Washington, it bridges Franklin and Walla Walla counties; it is south of Kahlotus ...

caused the river to slow, thus increasing crossing time. State officials then decided to reconstruct this bridge at that location.

References

External links

* * {{Registered Historic Places Bridges completed in 1927 Bridges in Franklin County, Washington Bridges over the Snake River Cantilever bridges in the United States Historic American Engineering Record in Washington (state) National Register of Historic Places in Columbia County, Washington National Register of Historic Places in Franklin County, Washington Relocated buildings and structures in Washington (state) Road bridges on the National Register of Historic Places in Washington (state) Steel bridges in the United States Transportation buildings and structures in Columbia County, Washington 1927 establishments in Washington (state)

Original construction

See also

References

External links