Skip to main content

Pengra Covered Bridge - Oregon

Image
By

 


Also known as the Fall Creek Covered Bridge, the Pengra Covered Bridge is a 268 foot long covered Howe through truss designed covered bridge spanning over the Fall Creek in Lane County, Oregon, southeast of Eugene and Springfield. Built in 1938, the bridge was built by A.C. Striker, who was the Lane County bridge superintendent at the time. The Pengra Covered Bridge contains two of the longest timbers ever cut for a bridge in Oregon, covered or not. The timbers for the lower chords, 16 inch by 18 inch by 126 feet long. Since 18 inch timbers were too large to be run through a sawmill, they were rough hewn in the woods, transported to the bridge site by truck and resurfaced before being set into place. The dimensions of the upper chord are of similar proportions at 14 inch by 18 inch by 96 feet long. While the use of one piece chords simplified construction techniques in building the bridge and resulted in a stronger truss, the handling such large timbers often proved to be difficult. Another distinctive feature of the bridge is a small roofed window on the southwest facing side, allowing drivers to see oncoming traffic as it approaches the bridge.

The Pengra Covered Bridge replaced a 192 foot span that was built in 1904 and was only a few feet upstream from the current bridge. The effect of weather and increased traffic caused Lane County to close the bridge in 1979. While Lane County officials had planned to reopen the structure, getting a contract ready for work for bridge restoration was delayed for several years. The bridge was repaired and reopened to traffic by Lane County in 1995 with the help of a grant from the Oregon Covered Bridge Program.

Regarding the name, Pengra was a station on the Cascade Line of the Southern Pacific Railroad and was named for B.J. Pengra, a pioneer in the history of early Oregon who later became general surveyor of Oregon in 1862. Pengra had surveyed the route of the Oregon Central Military Road to link the Willamette Valley with the Owyhee mining country of Eastern Oregon. The road was finished to the summit of the Cascades in 1867, but was seldom used, perhaps due to other roads that were built at the time (the Santiam Wagon Road along what is modern day US 20 comes to mind). The Pengra Unity Road lies on the old railroad grade of the old Cascade Line and has been renamed Place Road, but the bridge retains the name.







How to Get There:



Sources and Links:
Eugene Cascades and Coast - Pengra Covered Bridge
Oregon.com - Fall Creek (Pengra) Covered Bridge
Bridgehunter.org - Pengra Covered Bridge 37-20-15
Covered-Bridges.org - The Pengra (Fall Creek) Bridge
Library of Congress - Pengra Bridge, Spanning Fall Creek, Place Road (CR 480), Jasper, Lane County, OR
Labels:
Location: Pengra Covered Bridge, Fall Creek, OR 97438, USA

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Abandoned Fowler Avenue in Clovis, California

By
Originally Fowler Avenue in the city of Clovis had a brief discontinuation approaching Herndon Avenue.  Fowler Avenue traffic heading northbound was required to detour briefly onto westbound Herndon Avenue.  During 2001 this discontinuation was removed when Fowler Avenue was reconfigured to access the Sierra Freeway (California State Route 168) via an interchange.  This led to a segment of the original alignment of Fowler Avenue just south of Herndon Avenue to be abandoned.  Despite a shopping center opening over part of the original Fowler Avenue alignment in 2016 much of the abandoned roadway remains.   The history of the abandoned original alignment of Fowler Avenue in Clovis The original alignment of California State Route 168 departed downtown Clovis eastbound along Tollhouse Road.  This original alignment did not interact with Fowler Avenue at the Herndon Avenue intersection.  Fowler Avenue north of Tollhouse Road ran north to Herndon Avenue...
Post a Comment
Read more

May 2023 Ontario Trip (Part 3 of 3)

By
  Over the years, I have made plenty of trips to Ontario, crisscrossing the southern, central and eastern parts of the province. Living in Upstate New York, it's pretty easy to visit our neighbor to the north, or is that our neighbor to the west? Ottawa is one of my favorite cities to visit anywhere in the world, plus I've discovered the charm of Kingston, the waterfalls of Hamilton (which is on the same Niagara Escarpment that brings us Niagara Falls), the sheer beauty of the Bruce Peninsula, and more. But I hadn't explored much of Cottage Country. So I decided to change that, and what better time to go than over Memorial Day weekend, when the daylight is long and I have an extra day to explore. On the third and final day of my trip, I started in Huntsville and made my way through Muskoka District and Haliburton County, passing by many lakes along the way. I stopped in towns such as Dorset, Haliburton and Bancroft before making a beeline down to Belleville and then over th...
Post a Comment
Read more

What's In a Name?: When the Roads Really Do Tell a Story

By
  Our tagline on the Gribblenation blog is "because every road tells a story". Some roads tell different stories than others. Along our travels, we may see historic markers that tell us a little story about the roads we travel or the places we pass by. Some historic markers are more general, as to telling us who lived where or what old trail traversed between two towns. During my travels across New York State and other states or provinces, I pass by many historic markers, some with interesting or amusing references to roads. I wanted to highlight a few of the markers I've seen along my travels around the Empire State and help tell their stories. Those stories may be as specific as explaining the tales of a tree that was used to help measure a distance of eight miles from Bath to Avoca in Steuben County, as referenced on the Eight Mile Tree historical marker above. They may also help point the way along historical roads first used centuries ago, or may help tell a local l...
Post a Comment
Read more