CROOKED RIVER BRIDGE

project date: 2012 | by linda repplinger

If you drive over the Crooked River Bridge in Central Oregon, chances are you will want to stop at the first pull-out, then turn around to enter Peter Skeene Ogden State Park. The landscape is fairly flat, so a sudden deep chasm, over 300 feet deep, is quite a surprise! From Peter Skeene Ogden State Park you can take a peek over the edge of the Crooked River Canyon, way down to the Crooked River below. Visitors will also find interpretive exhibits telling about three noteworthy bridges which have crossed here. Two of the bridges still stand.

First, the Oregon Trunk Railroad Bridge, one of our nation's highest railway bridges, was completed in 1911 out of steel. The second, Crooked River (High) Bridge, was our nation's highest single arch span when it was constructed in 1926 - designed by Conde B. McCullough to carry automobile traffic. The new Crooked River Bridge, used today, was the first major cast-in-place segmental concrete arch bridge in the United States. Sea Reach designed and fabricated the interpretive signage for the park.