St. Johns Bridge: Finished in 1931, the steel suspension St. Johns Bridge is arguably the
most beautiful in the city, connecting North Portland to US-30 northwest
of the city. Sadly, since the bridge lies a few miles west of the city,
many visitors to Portland never see this marvelous structure, which is
a designated historical landmark. [1]
Contrary to popular urban legend, this bridge was not designed
by Joseph Strauss, the designer of San Francisco's Golden Gate Bridge.
It was designed by Holton Robinson and David Steinman, who inspected their
finished work by taking a stunt airplane ride over and under the bridge.[2]
It was painted pale green to blend into the landscape; someone had
earlier made the now absurd suggestion of painting it with yellow and black
stripes to make the bridge visible to aircraft (!). [3] Keep in mind,
though, that this was a huge structure for 1931 - 400-foot-high towers,
a 1,207-foot main span, and clearance of 205 feet at low water [4] - and
it dwarfed the other Portland bridges by comparison. The Marquam
and Fremont bridges were still almost forty years in the future.
Steinman went on to distinguish himself as a world-famous bridge designer
and expert, designing notable bridges such as the Mackinac Bridge in Michigan.
Perhap the reason that Strauss is so often inaccurately credited with
designing the St. Johns Bridge is that he did design another Oregon
bridge, the Lewis and Clark Bridge (aka, Longview Bridge) across the Columbia
River in 1930 [5]. Plus, the St Johns is a suspension bridge that
vaugely resembles the Golden Gate.
Work to renovate the St. Johns Bridge - including repainting it and fixing things like burnt-out lights - started in 2003 and was mostly finished by late 2005. Many of my photos here were shot before the renovation - you can tell by the fact that 2 of the 4 red lights at the top of the bridge had been burnt out plus the bridge was really rusty. It looks great now!
References:
[1] Smith, Dwight. Historic Highway Bridges of Oregon. Second
Edition. Portland, Oregon: Oregon Historical Society, 1989. P. 113.
[2] Petroski, Henry. Engineers of Dreams: Great Bridge Builders
and the Spanning of America. New York: Alfred A. Knopf,
1995. P. 334-335.
[3] ibid, P. 382.
[4] Smith, P. 113.
[5] ibid.
