Ritner Creek Covered Bridge

Ritner Creek Covered Bridge - Oregon

Built in 1927 at a cost of $6,964, the 75 foot long Ritner Creek Covered Bridge alongside OR 223 near Pedee in Polk County, Oregon was the last covered bridge to be located on an Oregon state highway. Ritner Creek Bridge and Ritner Creek were named for pioneer Sebastian Ritner, who arrived in Oregon in 1845. At the time the Ritner Creek Bridge was built, there were about 450 covered bridges in Oregon. The bridge was built by Hamar and Curry, and during Charles Otis Hamar’s career, he was builder or contractor for many Howe Truss covered bridge structures such as the Ritner Creek Bridge, Five Rivers Fisher School Bridge on the Alsea River, Chitwood Bridge on Mary’s River, North Fork Yachats River Bridge and Drift Creek Bridge.

The Ritner Creek Covered Bridge almost became a memory in 1974. Declared structurally unsafe, it was scheduled for removal. The children of Pedee School along with the citizens in the Pedee area rallied to its support with a "Save our Bridge" campaign. The Polk County commissioners met with the state highway department and as a result the issue was placed on the ballot May 28, 1974. The measure passed and the covered bridge was lifted from its foundation and relocated just downstream of its original site to an adjacent site at the new Minnie Ritner Ruiter Wayside in 1976 at the cost of $26,031. The new concrete bridge on OR 223 parallels the Ritner Creek Bridge.

Plaque inside the bridge that gives a little history of the Ritner Creek Bridge.

A nice side angle of the bridge.

The inside of the bridge is quite spacious.

The modern concrete bridge over the Ritner Creek on OR 223 is next to the covered bridge.

Side angle view of the bridge.

Looking inside to the Ritner Creek Bridge.

View of the bridge from the north side of the creek.

A nice parting shot of the Ritner Creek Bridge.

How to Get There:

Sources and Links:
Ride With GPS - Western Valley: Ritner Creek Covered Bridge
Ritner Creek Covered Bridge - History of Ritner Creek Bridge
Polk County, Oregon - Ritner Creek Bridge
Oregon.com - Ritner Creek Covered Bridge
Bridgehunter.com - Ritner Creek Covered Bridge 37-27-01

Comments

Old Scout said…

Would you have any connection to a camera operator for the Jesse Stone series DAVID GRIBBLE

12:03 AM

Paper Highways: The Unbuilt New Orleans Bypass (Proposed I-410)

There are many examples around the United States of proposed freeway corridors in urban areas that never saw the light of day for one reason or another. They all fall somewhere in between the little-known and the infamous and from the mundane to the spectacular. One of the more obscure and interesting examples of such a project is the short-lived idea to construct a southern beltway for the New Orleans metropolitan area in the 1960s and 70s. Greater New Orleans and its surrounding area grew rapidly in the years after World War II, as suburban sprawl encroached on the historically rural downriver parishes around the city. In response to the development of the region’s Westbank and the emergence of communities in St. Charles and St. John the Baptist Parishes as viable suburban communities during this period, regional planners began to consider concepts for new infrastructure projects to serve this growing population. The idea for a circular freeway around the southern perimeter of t

Hernando de Soto Bridge (Memphis, TN)

The newest of the bridges that span the lower Mississippi River at Memphis, the Hernando de Soto Bridge was completed in 1973 and carries Interstate 40 between downtown Memphis and West Memphis, AR. The bridge’s signature M-shaped superstructure makes it an instantly recognizable landmark in the city and one of the most visually unique bridges on the Mississippi River. As early as 1953, Memphis city planners recommended the construction of a second highway bridge across the Mississippi River to connect the city with West Memphis, AR. The Memphis & Arkansas Bridge had been completed only four years earlier a couple miles downriver from downtown, however it was expected that long-term growth in the metro area would warrant the construction of an additional bridge, the fourth crossing of the Mississippi River to be built at Memphis, in the not-too-distant future. Unlike the previous three Mississippi River bridges to be built the city, the location chosen for this bridge was about two

Memphis & Arkansas Bridge (Memphis, TN)

Like the expansion of the railroads the previous century, the modernization of the country’s highway infrastructure in the early and mid 20th Century required the construction of new landmark bridges along the lower Mississippi River (and nation-wide for that matter) that would facilitate the expected growth in overall traffic demand in ensuing decades. While this new movement had been anticipated to some extent in the Memphis area with the design of the Harahan Bridge, neither it nor its neighbor the older Frisco Bridge were capable of accommodating the sharp rise in the popularity and demand of the automobile as a mode of cross-river transportation during the Great Depression. As was the case 30 years prior, the solution in the 1940s was to construct a new bridge in the same general location as its predecessors, only this time the bridge would be the first built exclusively for vehicle traffic. This bridge, the Memphis & Arkansas Bridge, was completed in 1949 and was the third

Gribblenation

Search This Blog