Burnside Bridge

Information and Findings From Oregon's Historic Bridge Inventory

Description

252-ft double-leaf Strauss bascule main span with two 266-ft riveted steel double-intersection Warren deck truss secondary spans and thirty-four steel deck girder approach spans

Designer

I.G. Hedrick and Robert Kremers (Original Design), Gustav Lindenthal (Lead Engineer), Joseph Strauss (Bascule Design)

Builders

Pacific Bridge Company

Significance

One of the lesser known features of the Burnside Bridge is the corruption involved in building it. The county brought in Lindenthal to complete the design and supervise construction after the arrest of Kremers for bribery and collusion, resulting in the replacement of the county commissioners. The bridge replaced a pin-connected steampowered swing span from 1894 that could no longer keep up with the demands of the 1920s motoring public. Due to its location in the middle of downtown, a number of decorative treatments are featured, including a balustrade railing and octagonal Italianate operator's houses designed by Architects Houghtaling and Dougan.

Character Defining Features

Defining Features: Decorative features, Operator houses, Railings, Structure type, Location

Architectural Property Description

The Burnside Bridge opened to traffic in May 1926 and spans the Willamette River in downtown Portland, Oregon, at River Mile 12.7, just upstream from the Steel Bridge, within the core of the central commercial district of the city. A steel deck truss with a central, double leaf Strauss bascule, the bridge measures 788 feet long between the abutment walls (i.e., not including the approach spans). The first bascule bridge to rely upon a concrete deck for its movable span, at 5000 tons (according to Wortman, 2000), the Burnside is one of the heaviest bascule bridges constructed in the United States. The Burnside Bridge design was initially the work of Ira G. Hedrick and Robert E. Kremers, with some modification and construction supervision by Gustav Lindenthal. The bridge is owned and maintained by Multnomah County.

History

The Burnside Bridge, a major element in Portland's multi-bridge bond-funded bridge expansion in the mid-1920s, was completed in May 1926 and is intrinsically linked to the city's long history of transportation and development. Built following a political controversy over its original contract, the span was designed by Ira G. Hedrick and Robert E. Kremers and then, after their removal from the project, modified and constructed under the direction of Gustav Lindenthal. The Burnside Bridge, located at the center point of Portland's character-defining geographic street quadrants, remains a key element in the city and continues to function as originally intended, with high integrity with respect to its original design. One of the busiest bridges, in terms of vehicular traffic, in Oregon, the Burnside Bridge was declared a "Regional Emergency Transportation Route" in the mid-1990s. Nominated under the framework of the Willamette River Highway Bridges MPD and built within the middle period of bridge development as defined by that document, the Burnside Bridge is of statewide significance under National Register eligibility Criterion A, Community Planning and Development and Transportation, for its association with the development of Portland and its transportation network between its construction in 1926 and the close of the period of significance for the MPD document in 1973. The Burnside Bridge is also of statewide significance under Criterion C, Engineering, as one of the heaviest bascule bridges in the United States and as the first such bridge to rely upon a concrete deck surface for its movable span. The Burnside Bridge meets all the general and the necessary specific registration requirements for listing under the MPD.

Bibliography

ASCE (American Society of Civil Engineers). Joseph Baermann Strauss (http://www.asce.org/PPLContent.aspx?id=2147487405), visited 25-August-2010.
DeLony, Eric. Landmark American Bridges. Boston, MA: Little, Brown and Company, 1993.
Lansing, Jewell. Portland: People, Politics and Power 1851-2001. Corvallis, OR: Oregon State University Press, 2003-2005.
MacColl, E. Kimbark. The Growth of a City: Power and Politics in Portland, Oregon 1915-1950. Portland, OR: The Georgian Press, 1979.
Oregonian. Misc. issues as cited by date/page in text.
Oregon Journal. Misc. issues as cited by date/page in text.
Plowden, David. Bridges: The Spans of North America. New York, NY: The Viking Press, 1974.
Ritz, Richard Ellison. Architects of Oregon. Portland, OR: Lair Hill Publishing, 2002.
Smith, Dwight, James B. Norman and Pieter T. Dykman. Historic Highway Bridges of Oregon (2nd, Revised Ed.). Portland, OR: Oregon Historical Society Press, 1986.
Willamette Light Brigade. http://beta.lightthebridges.org/legacy-burnside.htm (visited 22-November-2010).
Wood Wortman, Sharon. Burnside Bridge, Historic American Engineering Record [HAER No. OR-101]. Prepared as part of the Willamette River Bridges Recording Project, HAER/Oregon Department of Transportation, in cooperation with Multnomah County, July 2000.
Wood Wortman, Sharon, with Ed Wortman. The Portland Bridge Book (3rd Edition). Portland, OR: Urban Adventure Press, 2006.

Bridge Considered Historic By Survey: Yes