Crossing the Pass

Before the Deception Pass Bridge was completed in 1935, crossing Deception Pass required a boat. In 1929, travelers taking a car from Whidbey Island to Fidalgo Island could make the trip aboard the MV Acorn, which made several daily runs from Hoypus Point on Whidbey Island to Yokeko Point on Fidalgo Island. Berte Olson, the first female ferry captain on Puget Sound, could have been the captain. Evidence of the ferry landings remains at each site. The bridge later transformed travel across the pass, carrying more than 700 cars in its first hour after opening, and in 2008 an average of fourteen to sixteen thousand cars a day crossed it. In 2007, the Washington Department of Transportaion began replacing the original guard rails on the bridge approaches, rails that had been built by the Civilian Conservation Corps in the 1930s, with new rails designed to meet modern safety needs while honoring the CCC's work.

Washington · United States