Bridge Across Columbia Proposed to Link States
By Frank Branch Riley, Chairman Oregon-Washington Interstate Bridge Committee aid Vice-President of the Pacific Highway Association in Oregon
The Morning Oregonian
January 1, 1913

The ferryboat operating upon the Columbia River between the cities of Vancouver and Portland has for many years, demonstrated the urgent necessity of a highway bridge at this most important crossing of the great river which is an interstate boundary, and a formidable barrier to the development of trade, and of interchange and communication between the two commonwealths.

This need has become increasingly apparent with the amazing commercial, growth of these two neighboring states and the use of the motor driven vehicle for the transportation of freight, and produce, and of travelers, over the common roads. The movement of freight over the highways by free wheel traction has come vastly to exceed the volume of traffic over all the railroads.

The traffic between the two cities and the two counties directly concerned Clark, in Washington, and Multnomah, in Oregon has long since outgrown the size of the ferry. To this is added the constantly increasing traffic which is led to this same river crossing from north and south over the main line and the laterals of the Pacific Highway a continuous western coast trunk road of international interest and importance.

The motor truck of the freight handlers and wholesale dealers, the truck carts of the farmers, and the touring cars of the tourists. Investors and home seekers are held up in long weary columns before getting across the river. On festival days when communication between the shores is uncommonly great, transportation of the motors and wagons and carriages over the river is out of the question, and they are abandoned by the hundreds while their owners alone pack the overcrowded ferryboats.

Of singular Interest to the Oregonian is the situation in Southwestern Washington. Here, scarcely half a mile from the north boundary of Multnomah County lies an empire of unused land, fertile, potential. As yet comparatively sparsely settled, its inhabitants have scarcely more than scratched the surface of the productive soil. Though a part of Washington, this region is removed by natural barriers from the great centers of population in the state. 

It is not naturally tributary to the markets of Puget Sound. Geographically, commercially, sentimentally, its interests are closely allied with those of the people across the Columbia. interurban electric lines, radiating from Portland, have penetrated east, west and south into the Willamette Valley, stimulating a remarkable growth and bringing about an even distribution of rural population and wealth.

A great highway bridge across the Columbia shall accommodate new systems of electric lines which shall eventually network Southwestern Washington, and provide rapid electric interurban transit between Portland and the cities of Puget Sound. Vancouver is nearer Portland than many of Portland's flourishing "additions," and yet it is declared that enough fruit and vegetables go to waste in Clark County alone to feed half of Portland, because it takes more to get the stuff to market than it will sell for when it gets there.

The story of the present wide spread popular campaign for the Interstate Pacific Highway bridge is interesting. For several years J. H. Nolta, now president of the North Portland Commercial Club, had been calling attention to the need of the bridge, and at the Oregon Legislative Assembly of 1911 an unsuccessful effort was made to secure state appropriation of at least an amount sufficient to cover for preliminary surveys and estimates of the proposed bridge. 

In the Spring of 1912 the Vancouver Commercial Club, having discovered that a fund of $5,000 would be required for such surveys and estimates, procured half of this sum by subscriptions in Clark County. On March 1, 1912, 200 enthusiastic members of that club, headed by Lloyd Dubois its president, marched to Portland with bands and banners, and in a spirited meeting with Portland businessmen, at the Portland Commercial Club, the campaign for the bridge was launched, and it has ever since been carried on. under the joint auspices of these two neighboring commercial organizations in Vancouver and Portland.

A Portland committee, headed by General T. M. Anderson, as honorary chairman, in a brisk and popular canvass, promptly completed the fund of $5,000 for a preliminary report. Thereupon a Joint Commercial Club committee, comprising James P. Stapleton. A. M. Blaker and Dr. Charles S. Irwin, of Vancouver, and C. C. Colt, S. L. Woodward and Frank B. Riley, chairman, of Portland, was appointed to secure a competent engineer and superintend the preliminary work. 

In April, 1912, this committee employed Engineer Ralph Modjeskl, a bridge builder of international reputation, to make the surveys, sounding, borings, estimates and plans and specifications for the proposed bridge. The comprehensive report of the engineer was delivered to the committee in July, 1912, and has received wide publicity. In brief, it discloses that a modern steel bridge across the main or Washington channel, with a 36 foot roadway, on piers, consisting of steel cylinders filled with concrete, and placed on top of the foundation caissons, sunk 80 feet below low water, will cost approximately $2,000,000, and that the permanent Oregon approach, 12,0000 feet in length, from the highland on the Oregon shore to the south end of the main bridge on Hayden Island, consisting of an embankment, bridges over the Oregon and Columbia Sloughs, and a viaduct over the O. R. & N. Company's tracks, would cost approximately $500,000. 

Such a bridge and the approaches would carry the heaviest modern loading of continuous trains of interurban cars, motor trucks, vehicles and pedestrians. Upon receipt of the report a new committee of Portland and Vancouver citizens was appointed to devise a program for financing the bridge, and to suggest the proper apportionment of cost between the two counties and states directly interested, and to consider the constitutional questions involved and to suggest the necessary legislation, and to direct a wide publicity of the project. 

This committee, which is still in the midst of its labors is composed of Whitney L. Boise, W. M. Klllingsworth, John F. Logan, J. H. Nolta, E. G. Crawford, M. G. Munley and Frank B. Riley, chairman, for Oregon, and W. P. Connoway, E. L. French, A. B. Eastham, George McCoy. J. H. Elwell and James P. Stapleton, chairman, for Washington. The committee is unanimously agreed that the cost of one-half of the main bridge should be borne by the citizens of Washington and that the citizens of Oregon should meet the cost of one-half the main bridge and of all the permanent Oregon approach. 

The plans which the committee is formulating, and shall suggest for operation in the respective states, are not yet ready to be announced, but will be known and thoroughly understood in ample time before the convening of the Legislative Assemblies of the two states. In Washington, where the people have embraced the modern, progressive doctrine of state aid for projects which have more than a local importance, it is expected that no difficulty will be encountered in securing from the state an appropriation, or the authorization of state bond issues, sufficient to meet Washington's share of the cost. 

There has also been suggested an appropriation from the state highway fund in connection with an issue of bonds by Clark County alone, or in conjunction with the neighboring western counties, formed into a district for the purpose. In Oregon, Multnomah County, is, of course, recognized as an important beneficiary of the proposed bridge, and in any plan of finance, will doubtless be called to bear a corresponding burden, in addition to the contribution which she would make in such state aid as is given, as the county paying over one-third of the state taxes. But it must be remembered that this bridge shall more or less directly affect the growth and prosperity of every section of the state. 

It shall have a state wide, an interstate use and importance. Indeed, its value to the entire Coast logically entitles it to Federal aid. The prospect, however, of any assistance by the central Government is extremely remote. The matter was taken up by the committee with the Congressional delegations of Washington and Oregon at a conference held at Seattle, on October 6, 1912.

The sentiment of the promoters of the project has always been to make the bridge free for all highway traffic and for pedestrians, believing that the publicly owned toll bridge is a relic of barbarism and against the Western spirit of the times. It is estimated that the revenue of the bridge, derived from the rental by competing interurban electric lines, will be ample to meet the maintenance expense and provide a considerable fund annually besides.

There is a keen realization of the need of the bridge to accommodate the continuous stream of Panama Pacific Fair visitors and home seekers from the Nation and the world who shall come north over the Pacific Highway to get the first and controlling impressions of the much advertised Oregon country. The bridge is to be the gateway through and over which the traveler shall enter and leave Oregon.

The citizens of Washington, swiftly recognizing the value of the bridge to them, have endorsed the project generally. Such state-wide organizations as the progress and prosperity comprising 155 commercial bodies throughout the state; the Southwest Development Association, various local granges, the State Good Roads Association and the automobile clubs of the larger cities in every section of the state have pledged support to the building of the bridge.

In Oregon favorable expressions have been received from the country press, and the newspapers of Portland have universally given the proposed improvement the widest publicity and support. Many Portland organizations. including the Chamber of Commerce, Commercial Club, Progressive Business Club. Rotary Club, Realty Board and the East Side Business Association, have enthusiastically endorsed the bridge, It is believed that the time has come in the development of the Columbia River basin when this bridge is a. necessity; that the people want it, and will have it Without further delay.