St. Johns Bridge

PhotoID: 5D0IMG17076

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!

[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.