Goodpasture Bridge

Goodpasture Bridge recalls the era when covered bridges were common on Oregon’s back roads, yet it has remained an active and important transportation link for Lane County. Built during Oregon’s covered bridge heyday in the 1930s, it is a truss bridge made of local timber, and its long, clear span over the river helps reduce the risk of floodwaters damaging its supports. Construction began in 1937, when a Lane County bridge crew surveyed the site and built the abutments, and continued the following spring after the McKenzie’s high waters subsided. Walt and Miller Sorensen supervised a crew of about 12 construction workers, and the bridge was ready for traffic in fall 1938. Covered bridges were built in stages, with abutments first and then a scaffold called falsework stretched between them to support crews as they assembled and tensioned the trusses. Because the McKenzie ran free and winter and spring floods could destroy the falsework, the span had to be finished and the scaffold removed before flood season; because Goodpasture Bridge had such a long span, Lane County brought in an extra crew in summer 1938 to ensure completion before the floods. More than 40 years of use by log trucks, farm vehicles, and residents of the growing neighborhood south of the river wore the bridge down, and by the 1980s it badly needed repair or replacement, but local supporters successfully pressed for repair rather than a new bridge. Today it is listed in the National Register of Historic Places.

Oregon · United States