In October 2012, a crowd gathered to celebrate the reopening of the historic arch bridge near Oregon City, an event that carried more than a hint of déjà vu.

From the use of shotcrete to replicate the bridge’s original texture and look to the choice of Art Deco-style details such as sconce lights, the rehabilitation of the bridge paid tribute to the structure as it first looked nearly 90 years earlier. The project, however, was more a matter of history repeating itself than many people realized.

The options widened in 1898, when the first free suspension bridge west of the Rocky Mountains was completed at Oregon City. The grand opening of the bridge, which a now defunct Oregon City newspaper called The Banner-Courier described as “a line of 12-inch planks,” drew a crowd that included Old Barney, the first horse to officially cross the structure. Before too long, the bridge had become not only the favored way for people to cross the river, but also a major tourist destination, with people coming from Portland by boat to see the structure.

Eventually, the introduction of motorized vehicles increased the burden on the bridge. In 1911, Clackamas County officials brought in a bridge expert, who examined the structure and recommended repairs that closed the bridge for two days to all but pedestrians.

Less than a decade later, the planned completion of the Pacific Highway, described by The Oregonian as a 358-mile hard-paved ribbon of roadway, convinced state officials that the suspension bridge would need to be replaced with a more modern structure able to handle the shifting trends in modes of transportation.

The state transportation department turned to its main bridge engineer, Conde Balcom McCullough, who spent two years studying the spot where the suspension bridge was located. McCullough’s replacement for the site, a through-arch design, went public in 1919, when a drawing of the proposed bridge ran on a page of the Aug. 17 edition of The Sunday Oregonian. The newspaper noted that the construction plans for the bridge called for the use of “fabricated structural steel rib work encased in a protective coating of concrete” – a strategy that offered a combination of the structural rigidity and durability of both materials.

“The plans … embrace that type of construction which is coming more and more into favor because of its conservative features and inherent economy,” the newspaper added.

By 1921, the idea of building a new bridge had garnered support from both sides of the river. Officials in West Linn and Oregon City as well as from Clackamas County signed resolutions asking state legislators to approve bonds to pay for construction of the bridge.

The July 1, 1921, issue of the Capital Journal in Salem carried a page 5 story announcing that A. Guthrie & Co. had won the contract to build the bridge with a bid of $213,601 – the final cost eventually would climb to what was then Oregon’s most expensive bridge at $275,000. Seven months later, 475 tons of steel barged in from Portland stood on the banks of the river waiting for construction to start.

The real work on the bridge was just beginning, however.

The smoke from nearby industrial plants and factories contained sulfur dioxide, a corrosive chemical. So it was determined that the steel that would be used to build the arch would need to be covered with a spray-on material called gunite – a mixture of sand, concrete and water.

An equally perplexing issue was how to build the arch over the water.

McCullough and R.A. Furrow, who would serve as the state’s resident engineer on the project with C.P Richards as assistant engineer, came up with a solution so creative that it made the pages of a 1922 issue of Popular Science magazine.

The bridge arch was to be composed of hollow steel boxes, placed end to end. Once the boxes were all connected, completing the arch, columns would be built to support the roadway along with hangers to suspend the roadway from above. But the boxes needed to somehow be supported while they were being connected over the river.

McCullough and Furrow decided to put the old suspension bridge to work one last time before its eventual demolition, using it to support the arch of the new bridge while it was being built.

By July 1922, construction was well under way on the Oregon City structure, making it one of more than 150 bridges – totaling $1.8 million worth of construction – that that were either contracted for, under construction or completed by the state transportation department during that year.

On Dec. 28 a crowd once again gathered near Oregon City, this time to celebrate the official dedication of Oregon City’s new arch bridge, which at the time was the longest single span highway structure in the country. The event featured speeches and band performances as well as the wedding of a woman from West Linn and a man from Oregon City that served as a symbol of the joining of the two communities by the new structure. The mayors of West Linn and Oregon City led a crowd to the center of the bridge, where a barrier placed there was unlocked and, according to a newspaper reporter, “whistles from the industrial plants and nearby boats issued their glad salute.”

A reporter from The Banner-Courier captured the events of the day and posed a thought-proving question: “We who have witness(ed) the growth from day to day have marveled at the modern miracle of engineering, which has taken (form) before our eyes. Will the next 32 years see this structure replaced with a more modern creation? Or will it last through the century to come?”

The reporter likely wasn’t around almost nine decades later when the question was answered. Increasing traffic, including heavier vehicles, took a toll on the bridge following its original construction, and a major upgrade was required.

The October 2013 dedication ceremony marking completion of the rehabilitation project in large part mimicked the ones held in 1898 and 1922. The only things missing from the modern-day event: a horse like Old Barney and the “glad salutes” from nearby industrial plants and boats.

Flashback Friday is a new 91��Ƶ feature that examines the history of Oregon’s built environment. To suggest a project, event or person for a story, contact 91��Ƶ Editor Stephanie Basalyga at sbasalyga@djcOregon.com or at 503-802-7222.

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Most states are doing a “poor job” when it comes to offering on-the-job training and apprenticeship opportunities for women and minorities who want to work in highway construction, a recent study found. Progress is being made in Oregon, however.

The , a national network of community organizations, earlier this month released a study that provides detailed rankings of states in regard to on-the-job training and apprenticeship programs. Oregon ranked 10th in overall use of the training programs, and while there is still room for improvement in workforce diversity, barriers are beginning to be broken down.

The Oregon Legislature in 2009 passed a bill to dedicate one-half of one percent of all federal funds received by the Oregon Department of Transportation to increase diversity in highway construction and to train people interested in those jobs.

One local laborer apprentice attributes her full-time position to that legislation.

“I know that they love me on this job, but honestly I don’t think I’d have the opportunity to prove I was worth anything if it wasn’t for laws in place to get me out here,” said Lori Baumann, who is working for on the Oregon City bridge project. “It’s nothing personal, but they stick to their own – all these men I work with have generations of their dads and people in their lives working in this field.”

Angel McClain, a carpenter apprentice working with , has had a similar experience.

“The guys have been really great, but a lot of these guys (at Zemek) are younger,” said McClain, who is 35. “A lot of older guys are harder to win over – they’re just old school.”

Although hundreds of women worked in Portland’s shipyards during World War II, postwar culture shifted again and women didn’t begin re-entering the construction workforce until the 1970s, according to Connie Ashbrook, executive director of

“There is definitely an interest in the trades, but the pathway to get into the careers is much more complex because it involves more than just individual employers; there are apprenticeship programs as well,” Ashbrook said. “We found that women really need help to maneuver through that system unless they have a family member in the trades to help steer them through it.”

Baumann grew up in Georgia, where her father was a carpenter. She learned basic skills as a carpentry assistant at a young age, but her father’s experience did not inspire her to go into the field – the wages were very low, she said. Baumann didn’t consider a career in construction until she moved to Oregon and someone told her about OTI.

After graduating from the nonprofit’s pre-apprenticeship program in August 2009, Baumann worked for several companies; she has been with Wildish for more than a year.

“I love working with (Wildish) on bridges,” she said. “Fishermen and sea lions below me, bald eagles and hawks flying above me – we’re up in the air out here, and I like heights. I’m paid extremely fairly, and I’m happy here.”

The percentage of minorities and women working as apprentices or trainees on federally-funded projects has increased from 2008 to 2010 in Oregon, according to the report. The representation of minority on-the-job trainees and apprentices has grown from 19.6 percent in 2008 to 32.3 percent in 2010, when women represented 9.8 percent of all highway trades workers in Oregon.

“We try to take the training deal really seriously,” said Josh Smith, Wildish project manager for the Oregon City bridge project. “We try to find trainees who will move from job to job with us as a long-term employee.”

But outreach will be important for the number of women and minority trainees to continue to rise, Ashbrook said.

“The way people get jobs in the trades is through family and friend networks, so if your family and friends aren’t in these professions, then it’s really hard to learn about them and what you need to qualify,” she said.

As members of Congress make the case for investing in improvements for aging infrastructure, Ashbrook hopes that the diversity of the workforce will continue to grow.

“Hundreds of people come in our door every year expressing interest in construction, but not knowing what’s available to them,” she said.

Because OTI focuses on getting women into the trades, Ashbrook routinely sends men to OTI partners such as Constructing Hope and Urban League of Portland.

“And we really only reach out to a small part of our state’s population,” she said. “So that’s just the tip of the iceberg.”

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Crews from Wildish Standard Paving have started hydroblasting work to clean off the inside arch on the West Linn side of the Oregon City Bridge.

The effort is part of a $10.6 million, 2-year effort by the Oregon Department of Transportation to renovate the 88-year-old bridge, which began in January.

Hydroblasting removes the concrete coating of the bridge, called gunite, so that engineers can take a closer look at the steel structure underneath and see if it is corroded or damaged.

After the examination, the structure will be repaired and the coating will be replaced with shotcrete, another type of spray concrete, said Susan Hanson, ODOT spokeswoman for the project.

Wildish crews also ramped up work this month to add support structures to the bridge in order to even out weight so the columns can be inspected and repaired.

When work on the West Linn side of the bridge is finished, crews will move to the Oregon City side and repeat the process – likely starting sometime in March, Hanson said.

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The Oregon Department of Transportation has hired a contractor to provide shuttle bus service for pedestrians and bicyclists during the two-year, $10.6 million reconstruction of the Oregon City Bridge.

First Student of West Linn, an international firm with local offices, won the contract and began service on Jan. 14, said Susan Hanson, an ODOT spokeswoman for the project.

It’s the first time, as far as she knows, that ODOT has contracted to provide shuttle bus service, Hanson said.

The bus, which can hold up to four bicycles and has a wheelchair lift, runs every 40 minutes and takes riders across the Interstate 205 Abernethy Bridge to downtown Oregon City. It operates from 5 a.m. to 9 p.m. on weekdays and 7 a.m. to 8 p.m. on weekends.

Contractor Wildish Standard Paving Co. started the reconstruction on Jan. 15. Since then it has started to mobilize equipment, install false work for steel beam repairs and begin hydro-blasting inside the bridge arches.

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The Oregon City Bridge, 88 years old, has never needed a major renovation … until now.

A $10.6 million project is scheduled to start Saturday. But Oregon Department of Transportation officials and others are hopeful that in two years the bridge will be ready to revitalize the neighboring communities of Oregon City and West Linn.

“For an almost 90-year-old bridge it’s in remarkably good shape,” said Susan Hanson, an ODOT spokeswoman for the project. “There is some corrosion, some damage. But actually it’s impressive how well it’s held up considering it’s never had a major renovation.”

Credit legendary Oregon bridge engineer Conde McCullough – designer of many of the state’s coastal arch bridges – for a lot of that durability. He decided to use gunite, an ancestral version of shotcrete, to protect the Oregon City Bridge’s iron interior from corrosion by essentially coating it with concrete.

But while the bridge has held up relatively well, small iron veins over time have crept through the concrete skin and into the air where they’ve corroded, leaving engineers to question the structural integrity of its interior.

Weight restrictions for commercial vehicles on the bridge were instituted about 18 months ago, and then ODOT decided to move forward with the full renovation process.

The process won’t be simple, however. The bridge is listed on the National Register of Historic Places, so it can’t be widened, changed or modified in any significant way.

And the shutdown poses a threat to Oregon City businesses that are already suffering from the downturn in the economy, she noted.

Planning for the project, ODOT officials decided to work with local businesses groups to reduce the impacts as much as possible, Hanson said.

In the past two years the agency has repeatedly met with that community and agreed to improve traffic signs for the closure so that the 13,500 drivers that use the bridge each day know how to travel to downtown. It will also put up information stressing that Main Street businesses will remain open through the process.

ODOT selected contractor based on experience and not just its bid amount, Hanson said.

“They’ve done a lot of bridge projects,” she said of the Eugene-based company.

In the process, Wildish crews will hydro-blast off the old gunite coating to reveal the iron structure underneath. Special planning is required so that no contaminants land in the Willamette River, Hanson said.

“That high-pressure water blasting pulverizes the gunite into chunks, and there will be protection around that and we’ll barge the debris away for disposal,” she said.

After the gunite is removed, crews will examine the iron structure in sections. They will repair any corrosion or replace anything that can’t be repaired.

Then the structure will be rebuilt in a manner as historically accurate as possible, Hanson said.

“We do have the original plans from when the bridge was built, but the plans don’t always say exactly what was happening,” she said.

To circumvent that problem, ODOT and the contractor have examined historical photos of the original construction in 1922. They’ve found more than 100 images that show all sorts of detail, including how railings were stacked and installed, how workers sprayed on the gunite, what the wire mesh looked like beneath the gunite coating and a host of other things, she said.

“You see a lot of things the workmen did as they constructed it, and you also see that they didn’t have safety harnesses back then,” Hanson said with a laugh.

Looking at the photos also helped engineers discover several aspects that weren’t included in the planning documents, she said.

“In the base we can see them adding steel rods in the photos, and those aren’t anywhere in the plans – there are a lot of little things like that,” Hanson said.

Workers also will remove and replace eight decorative pylons – four at each side of the bridge. The old pylons will be donated to Oregon City, West Linn and Clackamas County, Hanson said.

“They can use them in parks or as decorative features as they see fit,” she said.

After the work wraps up, workers will coat the bridge with shotcrete, and ODOT expects it will be another 90 years before another big renovation is needed, Hanson added.

To kick off the project, the Willamette Falls National Heritage Area Coalition is planning an event on the bridge from 2-4 p.m. on Saturday. Speakers, storytellers and dancers will commemorate the importance of the bridge to local communities and educate visitors about the history of the river area.

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These photos show the construction of the Oregon City arch bridge that replaced the original Oregon City Bridge. The Oregon Department of Transportation examined several photos of the bridge construction in 1922 in order to restore some of the features – like the lights, which had been removed – when the bridge is rebuilt. The bridge’s eight pylons will also be recast and replaced as part of the restoration, and the originals will be donated to Oregon City, West Linn and Clackamas County.

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The Oregon Department of Transportation has scheduled a new meeting for residents in West Linn and Oregon City to discuss the two-year shutdown of the Oregon City Bridge, which begins on Jan. 15.

The agency decided to add the meeting on Jan. 11, a day after its originally-scheduled Jan. 10 meeting because of the upcoming BCS National Championship football game between the Oregon Ducks and Auburn Tigers, said Susan Hanson, a spokeswoman for the project.

The Jan. 10 meeting at the West Linn Public Library at 1595 Burns St. will continue as planned from 5 to 7 p.m., but officials were worried about low attendance because of the football game, she said.

“We had the other one scheduled well in advance of the game,” Hanson said. “But we wanted to make sure residents had an opportunity to get questions answered about road closures, detours and a new shuttle service before the bridge actually closes.”

The Jan. 11 meeting will be held at West Linn High School, at 5464 West A Street, in the Forum Room from 5 to 7 p.m.

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