Walter R. Hjelle Bridge

Bridging the Missouri River at Washburn was a longtime goal of local residents, who pursued the project as early as 1908 with an unsuccessful trip to Washington, D.C. During the 1920s and 1930s, although highway bridges were built at Bismarck-Mandan, Williston, Sanish, and Elbowoods, a proposed bridge near Garrison, Stanton, or Washburn was defeated in the legislature because of the Depression-era economy. Another financing effort followed in the 1950s, when the McLean-Oliver Development Association was organized in November 1952 to promote a bridge at Washburn for oil trucks bound for the Mandan refinery west of the river, but by 1955 oil was moving to Mandan by pipeline and North Dakota Highway 7, later 200, had been routed across the top of Garrison Dam. The project finally advanced in 1965 when the State Highway Department began planning a bridge at Washburn. Built just west of Washburn in 1970 and 1971 by the Sletten Construction Co. of Great Falls, Montana, the girder-style bridge cost $2.1 million and provided a crossing 36 feet by 1,500 feet, not counting a 25-mile road segment on the west side that carried Highway 200 Alternate to a connection with ND-200. After lengthy consideration in 1971, a straw poll by The Washburn Leader showed preference for the name Washburn Bridge, and it was dedicated under that name on November 30, 1971. In June 1992, it was rededicated as the Walter R. Hjelle Bridge in honor of the longtime State Highway Commissioner and McLean County native.

Washburn, North Dakota · United States