The St. Johns Bridge is a steel

suspension bridge A suspension bridge is a type of bridge in which the deck (bridge), deck is hung below suspension wire rope, cables on vertical suspenders. The first modern examples of this type of bridge were built in the early 1800s. Simple suspension bridg ...

that spans the

Willamette River The Willamette River ( ) is a major tributary of the Columbia River, accounting for 12 to 15 percent of the Columbia's flow. The Willamette's main stem is long, lying entirely in northwestern Oregon in the United States. Flowing northward b ...

Portland, Oregon Portland (, ) is a port city in the Pacific Northwest and the largest city in the U.S. state of Oregon. Situated at the confluence of the Willamette and Columbia rivers, Portland is the county seat of Multnomah County, the most populous co ...

, United States, between the Cathedral Park neighborhood in North Portland and the Linnton and Northwest Industrial neighborhoods in Northwest Portland. It carries the U.S. Route 30 Bypass. It is the only suspension bridge in the

Willamette Valley The Willamette Valley ( ) is a long valley in Oregon, in the Pacific Northwest region of the United States. The Willamette River flows the entire length of the valley and is surrounded by mountains on three sides: the Cascade Range to the east, ...

and one of three public highway suspension bridges in Oregon. The bridge has a center span and a total length of . It is the tallest bridge in Portland, with two towers and a navigational clearance. The adjacent park and neighborhood of Cathedral Park are named after the

Gothic Cathedral Gothic cathedrals and churches are religious buildings created in Europe between the mid-12th century and the beginning of the 16th century. The cathedrals are notable particularly for their great height and their extensive use of stained glass t ...

-like design of the bridge towers.

History

David B. Steinman David Barnard Steinman (June 11, 1886 – August 21, 1960) was an American civil engineer. He was the designer of the Mackinac Bridge and many other notable bridges, and a published author. He grew up in New York City's lower Manhattan, and ...

(1886–1960) and Holton D. Robinson, of New York, the St. Johns was the longest suspension-type bridge west of the Mississippi River at the time of construction. It is the only major highway suspension bridge in the Willamette Valley and one of only three major highway suspension bridges in Oregon. At the time of the proposal to build the bridge, the area was served by a ferry that carried 1,000 vehicles a day. The proposal for a bridge was initially met with skepticism in

Multnomah County Multnomah County is one of the 36 counties in the U.S. state of Oregon. As of the 2020 census, the county's population was 815,428. Multnomah County is part of the Portland–Vancouver– Hillsboro, OR–WA Metropolitan Statistical Area. Thou ...

, since St. Johns and Linnton were over five miles (8 km) from the heart of the city, and local business owners had minimal political clout. But after a lobbying effort that included a

vaudeville Vaudeville (; ) is a theatrical genre of variety entertainment born in France at the end of the 19th century. A vaudeville was originally a comedy without psychological or moral intentions, based on a comical situation: a dramatic composition ...

-style show performed at grange halls and schools throughout the county, voters approved a $4.25 million bond for the bridge in the November 1928 elections. Initially, a

cantilever bridge A cantilever bridge is a bridge built using structures that project horizontally into space, supported on only one end (called cantilevers). For small footbridges, the cantilevers may be simple beam (structure), beams; however, large cantilever ...

was proposed, but a suspension bridge was selected due to an estimated $640,000 savings in construction costs. The construction of the bridge began a month before the

Stock Market Crash of 1929 The Wall Street Crash of 1929, also known as the Great Crash, was a major American stock market crash that occurred in the autumn of 1929. It started in September and ended late in October, when share prices on the New York Stock Exchange colla ...

and provided many county residents with employment during the

Great Depression The Great Depression (19291939) was an economic shock that impacted most countries across the world. It was a period of economic depression that became evident after a major fall in stock prices in the United States. The economic contagio ...

. Because of its proximity to the

Swan Island Municipal Airport The Swan Island Municipal Airport was a joint civil-military airport that was operational on Swan Island in Portland, Oregon. Though it officially opened in 1927, the United States Postal Service had been using the airfield for a year. After the ...

, some government officials wanted the bridge painted yellow with black stripes. County officials waited until

St. Patrick's Day Saint Patrick's Day, or the Feast of Saint Patrick ( ga, Lá Fhéile Pádraig, lit=the Day of the Festival of Patrick), is a cultural and religious celebration held on 17 March, the traditional death date of Saint Patrick (), the foremost patr ...

1931 to announce that it would be painted green. Dedication of the bridge was put off for one month in order to make it the centerpiece of the 23rd annual Rose Festival. It was dedicated on June 13, 1931, and during the ceremony, the bridge engineer, David B. Steinman, said: StJohnsBridge1

The bridge was built within 21 months and one million dollars under budget. At the time of its completion, the bridge had: * the highest clearance in the nation, * the longest prefabricated steel cable rope strands, * the tallest steel frame piers of reinforced concrete, * the first application of aviation clearance lights to the towers, and * longest suspension span west of

Detroit, Michigan Detroit ( , ; , ) is the largest city in the U.S. state of Michigan. It is also the largest U.S. city on the United States–Canada border, and the seat of government of Wayne County. The City of Detroit had a population of 639,111 at ...

. Eighteen years later, in the summer of 1949, 15-year-old high school student Thelma Taylor was abducted and held by her captor, Morris Leland, under the east side of the bridge (which was undeveloped at the time, now the location of Cathedral Park), and was eventually murdered there. The crime shocked the city and her killer was apprehended and put to death. It was not until the

Marquam Bridge The Marquam Bridge is a double-deck, steel-truss cantilever bridge that carries Interstate 5 traffic across the Willamette River from south of downtown Portland, Oregon, on the west side to the industrial area of inner Southeast on the east. ...

in 1966 that another non-movable bridge would be built in Portland. By the 1970s, the bridge had been allowed to deteriorate, and cash-strapped Multnomah County asked the state to take over maintenance. Initially, the state declined, since it was also suffering from a lack of funds. But pressure from an association of county governments forced the state government to take it over on August 31, 1975. A county official estimated the move saved them $10 million during the first ten years of state maintenance. Portions of the east approaches and east span were repainted beginning in 1987 and completed in 1994. In 1999, the

Oregon Department of Transportation The Oregon Department of Transportation (ODOT) is a department of the state government of the U.S. state of Oregon responsible for systems of transportation. It was first established in 1969. It had been preceded by the Oregon State Highway Depar ...

announced a $27 million rehabilitation project that began in March 2003 and was completed in the fall of 2005. Included in the project was replacement of the deck, repainting of the towers, waterproofing the main cables, lighting upgrades, and improving access for bicycle and pedestrian traffic. By November 2004, renovation costs soared to $38 million, due mostly to the need to replace nearly half of the 210 vertical suspender cables. During the project, the bridge sidewalks were closed at all times. In addition, the entire bridge was closed at night and continuously for a month. The newly refurbished bridge was rededicated on September 17, 2006.

In July 2015, a group of protesters affiliated with

Greenpeace Greenpeace is an independent global campaigning network, founded in Canada in 1971 by Irving Stowe and Dorothy Stowe, immigrant environmental activists from the United States. Greenpeace states its goal is to "ensure the ability of the Earth t ...

rappelled down from the bridge to prevent the icebreaker MSV ''Fennica'' from leaving Portland, because it was destined to help

Shell Oil Company Shell USA, Inc. (formerly Shell Oil Company, Inc.) is the United States-based wholly owned subsidiary of Shell plc, a UK-based transnational corporation " oil major" which is amongst the largest oil companies in the world. Approximately 18,000 ...

drill for oil in the

Chukchi Sea Chukchi Sea ( rus, Чуко́тское мо́ре, r=Chukotskoye more, p=tɕʊˈkotskəjə ˈmorʲɪ), sometimes referred to as the Chuuk Sea, Chukotsk Sea or the Sea of Chukotsk, is a marginal sea of the Arctic Ocean. It is bounded on the west b ...

. They stayed there for forty hours, prompting the icebreaker to turn around after an initial departure attempt a few hours into the blockade. The vessel did eventually get through after three climbers came down, although it was met by dozens of kayakers in the water who joined the effort to slow or stop the ship from moving forward. In March 2019, a partially finished elaborate illegal skate park was discovered in the bridge's cable house located under the west side of the bridge. Following concerns about the skatepark's impacts on structural integrity of bridge, it was torn down in 2020.

References

External links

* * {{Crossings navbox , structure = Crossings , place =

, bridge = St. Johns Bridge , bridge signs = , upstream =

Burlington Northern Railroad Bridge 5.1 The Burlington Northern Railroad Bridge 5.1 or BNSF Railway Bridge 5.1, also known as the St. Johns Railroad Bridge or the Willamette River Railroad Bridge, is a through truss railway bridge with a vertical lift that spans the Willamette River in ...

, upstream signs = ''BNSF Railway'' , downstream = None , downstream signs = 1931 establishments in Oregon Bridges completed in 1931 Bridges in Portland, Oregon Bridges of the United States Numbered Highway System Bridges over the Willamette River Cathedral Park, Portland, Oregon Historic American Engineering Record in Oregon Portland Historic Landmarks Road bridges in Oregon Steel bridges in the United States Suspension bridges in the United States U.S. Route 30

History

See also

References

External links