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From to the , very few cities around the country celebrate their bridges as much as Portland, the city known as Bridgetown.

But not to be outdone, our neighbor to the south, Oregon City, is using its annual First City Celebration to celebrate one of the town’s most striking features, the 1922-built Oregon City/West Linn Arch Bridge. The event, which will take place July 30 throughout downtown Oregon City, focuses on teaching and celebrating the history of Oregon’s first city.

This is the time to remember the Arch Bridge, which is listed on the National Register of Historic Places, because it’s currently in the midst of a $10.6 million renovation that has it closed down for the next year and a half. The heavy civil and highway construction firm, Wildish, is not only the general contractor on the renovation, but it is the lead sponsor on the event.

鈥淲e work on signature projects throughout Oregon and Washington,鈥� said Josh Smith, project manager with Wildish. 鈥淲e’re a local Oregon contractor and we want to make sure the people in the communities we work in know we care about their health and safety.鈥�

To me, it’s not only cool to see the city pays homage to a structure that has served as an iconic symbol and economic boost to the city, but also to see a contractor take a vested interest in the city in which it’s working. You often see that type of stuff from gigantic companies 鈥� like when Facebook moved into Prineville 鈥� but not as often from local contractors like Wildish.

Anyway, the event is thrown by the Main Street program in Oregon City and is sure to be a good time with local art vendors, presentations and beer tasting from local brewers. And if you are just too excited to wait a month, here are some interesting facts about the bridge:

• The bridge, which opened officially in December of 1922, cost $300,000 to build.
• It was designed by Conde McCullough, who designed over 500 bridges in Oregon.
• It replaced the 1888-built pedestrian suspension bridge. Workers used the old bridge to begin construction on the Arch Bridge’s box steel ribs.
• It’s the only Oregon bridge to be encased in gunite, which protects it from corrosive sulfur dioxide emissions from paper mills south of the bridge.

-Nick Bjork

Photo by via Wikimedia Commons