Fremont Bridge

Late at night on June 15th of 1917, the world's first vehicle crossed the Fremont Bridge, and foot traffic followed the next day, joined over time by horse-drawn conveyances, trolleys, bicycles, and automobiles. For decades, trolleys were the major mode of transportation for people moving about the city, and the bridge's original trolley poles have been restored to the deck, though not in their original placement. Before the site was straightened into a channel, it was a seasonal home to the Duwamish people, who fished and hunted along marshy banks before being supplanted by settlement. Photographs from about 1911, as the Lake Washington Ship Canal was being built, show a mud flat, houses and shacks along its banks, weirs controlling the flow of water, and neighborhoods straggling up the banks and hills on either side. Snapshots from the opening of the canal on July 4, 1917, show a more orderly landscape with crowds filling the streets and canal banks. One of four bascule bridges spanning the Lake Washington Ship Canal, the Fremont Bridge has been renovated over the years, including gear replacement, removal of steel X bracing, and installation of concrete pillars, while retaining its essential character and importance in connecting neighborhoods and the flow of commerce. From trails beside the canal, people can watch the bridge raise and lower about 35 times a day, an action that remains majestic, entertaining, and celebratory.

Seattle, Washington · United States