Oregon's Bridges: Siuslaw River Bridge

Continuing south along the Oregon coast is the city of Florence and the Siuslaw River Bridge. This is one of Conde McCullough's most ornate creations. A 140 ft long steel, bascule bridge was built between two 154 ft reinforced concrete bow string arches, which are connected to 20 concrete girder approach spans. Among the decorative features on this bridge are obelisks that support the movable span, pylons at the far ends of the arch spans, an ornamental railing, arch shaped two-column piers, X-bracing connecting the arch ribs, and haunched girders on the approach spans.

The Siuslaw Bridge has a total length of 1568 ft and it was built in 1936 by the Mercer-Fraser Company of Eureka, California. The bridge would be at the mouth of the Siuslaw River except there is a giant sandbar that makes it flow another four miles before it finds the Pacific. The city of Florence is on the north side of the river and has a population of about 8000 people. The economy used to be based on logging and fishing but now its mostly supported by tourism and by retired people moving into the area. Perhaps the movable bridge span was to allow the passage of boats loaded with timber from Oregon's interior.

We can see timber piles sticking out the river where a dock once stood. The river was crossed by a ferry before the bridge was built.

Oregon's Bridges: Siuslaw River Bridge by Mark Yashinsky is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 United States License.

Oregon's Bridges: Ten Mile Creek Bridge

I had trouble identifying this bridge photo because there are several similar bridges only a few miles apart. However, I believe this photo is of Ten Mile Creek Bridge because it is the only bow string arch in a low-lying area of Oregon's Coast. It is another bridge designed by state bridge engineer Conde McCullough.

McCullough began his career as a bridge engineer in Iowa working for the Marsh Engineering Company that had a patent on this type of bridge that they built all over Iowa and Kansas. Conde introduced it to the Pacific Northwest. It was a good choice for a region with loose, sandy soil that couldn't support a deck arch and with corrosive salt air that made steel bridges impractical.

The Ten Mile Creek Bridge is a 180 ft long bridge with a 120 ft long reinforced concrete tied arch. You can see the hangers supporting the concrete floor beams that hold up the deck. It was built in 1931 on US 101 for the State of Oregon. It has ornate, precast concrete barrier rails and four X-shaped cross beams that connect the two arch ribs.

Oregon's Bridges: Ten Mile Creek Bridge by Mark Yashinsky is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 United States License.

Tokyo's River Crossings: Sobu Rail Line Bridge across the Sumida River (1)

I apologize for the poor quality of some of my Tokyo bridge photos. Many of them were taken on buses going to bigger bridge projects. I actually prefer the smaller bridges.

We'll look at just a few more Sumida River bridges, before we move on to bigger Japanese bridges.

The JR Soubu Line Bridge is tall steel bow-string arch with a long span crossing over the Sumida River. Railroads are as important as roads in Tokyo, especially to the commuters who live one or two hours outside of Tokyo. We are continuing to move downstream towards Tokyo Bay as we move from bridge to bridge. The Soubu Bridge doesn't seem as beefy as the other railway bridges. Perhaps it just carries a single track? Also, the Sumida appears to be getting wider as we continue downstream.

We've looked at river crossings in Singapore, in London, in Paris, in Toronto, and in Los Angeles. How are these bridges similar and how are they different. Which cities take the most pride in their bridges and which bridges celebrate their cities? Which cities do the best job of preserving their bridges? Do some cities emphasize a certain kind of river crossing? 

Tokyo's River Crossings: Sobu Rail Line Bridge across the Sumida River (1) by Mark Yashinsky is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 United States License.