A riveting subject
In 1934, construction began on the last five bridges designed to close the remaining watery gaps on Oregon’s Highway 101. The last one to open, in summer of 1936, the Yaquina Bay Bridge was celebrated for both its beauty and its contribution to the coast’s accessibility for commerce and tourism.
Newport’s Pacific Maritime Heritage Center will celebrate 90 years of this iconic structure at a Yaquina Bay Bridge Panel Discussion this Sunday, Sept. 8.
A panel of three state experts will explore the bridge’s significance as a Depression-era project, an example of state bridge engineer Conde McCullough’s design excellence and its preservation into the 21st Century.
Judith Kenny, Oregon associate from the Living New Deal, will introduce the short film “In Landscape Harmony: New Deal Bridges for the Oregon Coast.”
Robert Hadlow, author of “Elegant Arches, Soaring Spans: C.B. McCullough, Oregon’s Master Bridge Builder” will comment on McCullough’s aesthetic and transportation legacy.
Bringing the discussion into the present, Oregon State Bridge Engineer and author of “Bridges of the Oregon Coast,” Ray Bottenberg will talk about the future of the Yaquina Bay Bridge and the bridges of Oregon’s coastal highway.
After retiring as a professor of geography and urban studies from the University of Wisconsin, Kenny returned to her home state of Oregon to reacquaint herself with the state’s landscape and history. Given her parents’ stories of Depression era rural Oregon, she was drawn to work for the national nonprofit, the Living New Deal. For more than 10 years, she has traveled Oregon’s highways and forest tracks to document New Deal sites in every one of its 36 counties. Recently, she became producer of a video series, “Mapping New Deal Oregon” to further capture Oregon’s New Deal legacy.
Hadlow is the senior historian with the Oregon Department of Transportation, where he completes documentation for highway and rail projects. He prepared a National Historic Landmark nomination for the Columbia River Highway Historic District, designated in 2000. When he is not pursuing transportation history, you might see him out on the backroads around Portland driving his 1939 Buick Roadmaster.
Bottenberg, a 1986 mechanical engineering graduate of Oregon State University, worked as an aircraft structures engineer for The Boeing Company in Seattle from 1986 to 1997, later joining ODOT, where he eventually became the Bridge Preservation Unit Manager and then State Bridge Engineer. He has authored several local history books, including “Bridges of the Oregon Coast” and “Bridges of Portland.”
Saturday’s program runs from 2 to 3:30 pm at the Pacific Maritime Heritage Center, located at 333 SE Bay Blvd. in Newport. For more information, go to oregoncoasthistory.org or call 541-265-7509.