Beverly Bridge

The Pacific Extension of the Chicago, Milwaukee, St. Paul & Pacific Railroad (a.k.a. the Milwaukee Road), which crossed the rugged country of the northwest US through Montana, Idaho, and Washington state, required lots of major construction projects, many of which would have been impressive all by themselves.

One of these is the Beverly Bridge across the Columbia River, built in 1909. It comprises 15 concrete pillars built out in the river using caissons, by then a well-established engineering technique. The pillars support steel beams under a railroad deck some 85 feet above the river. Most of the beams are braced by so-called Warren trusses, in which the truss extends down below the deck. The middle of the main channel on the Columbia, however, is crossed by a Parker truss extending above the rail deck, to provide additional clearance for shipping. (The sources below include links to vintage photos of the construction.) Deck plate girders underlie the approaches on either side. The whole bridge is some 3000 feet long.

The Pacific Extension was abandoned in 1980 and the Beverly Bridge, with its associated right-of-way, was acquired by the state of Washington in lieu of back taxes. It was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1982, but otherwise remained abandoned for decades. A 2014 wildfire even destroyed the wood decking that was still left on the bridge.

Meanwhile, however, the rest of the Milwaukee Road right-of-way was being repurposed as a “rails-to-trails” corridor open to non-motorized traffic, now called the Palouse to Cascades State Park Trail. The Beverly Bridge was called a “pivotal connection” between the east and west halves of the trail, and support grew for refurbishing it for non-motorized traffic. In the late 2010s the Washington state legislature appropriated some $5.5 million for this purpose, and the reconstruction was carried out from 2019 through 2022. Sadly, a worker fell to his death during the reconstruction.

The bridge was reopened on April 8, 2022 with the Governor of Washington leading the ceremonies. The refurbishment included adding guardrails and a concrete deck consisting of prefabricated slabs. There are even several overhanging viewpoints with benches over the Columbia River.