Sharon Wood Wortman and her husband, Ed Wortman, celebrated 2014 by releasing a children’s book about the Portland area’s bridges. But their love affair with the local structures began long before that.

“I was a clerk at Union Pacific and had a chance to write about Portland’s big river bridges for The Oregonian,” Wood Wortman said. “It ended up being an 11-week, 20,000-word series published in the spring of 1984.”

As more people turned to Wood Wortman to learn about the city structures, she decided to write “The Portland Bridge Book,” which was published in 1989 by the Oregon Historical Society Press.

By 1993, she was teaching classes about the local bridges and leading bridge walks. While doing research for a story about the 20th anniversary of the Fremont Bridge, she met Ed Wortman, an engineer who helped construct the big arch in the 1970s. The couple married in 1998, and in 2001 co-wrote the second edition of “The Portland Bridge Book.”

A third edition of the book was printed in 2006. All three editions of the book were essentially for adults, but they found their way into the hands of children and teachers. From teachers’ inquiries, she and Ed decided to create a book about bridges specifically for young readers.

They found plenty of people willing to help make the book a reality. Five students in the graphic design program at Portland Community College created the layout. More than 150 artists and organizations contributed to the publication, which includes artwork and poetry from adults and kids, interviews with experts, and even a section on bridge building and load testing. The book’s publishing cost was covered, in part, via contributions from about 75 firms and individuals.

“The Big & Awesome Bridges of Portland & Vancouver – a Book for Young Readers and Their Teachers” was published in late 2014 by PDX Bridge Festival Inc., and Urban Adventure Press, in cooperation with Portland Public Schools. Nearly 4,500 copies were delivered to both PPS and Vancouver School District in December 2014.

“I led walks and taught about bridges for 20 years; Ed is now working on the Sellwood Bridge,” Wood Wortman said. “Big & Awesome was something we really loved doing. I’d call it a legacy project. You could say that for (us), it’s a book of gratitude.”

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A five-year volunteer effort to create a children’s book highlighting the history and engineering of Portland-metro bridges will culminate next month when 5,000 printed copies are distributed to public schools in Portland and Vancouver, Wash.

About 1,500 copies of “The Big and Awesome Bridges of Portland and Vancouver – a Book for Young Readers and Their Teachers” will be available for sale to the general public, said bridge historian Sharon Wood Wortman, who co-authored the 240-page book with her husband, Ed Wortman, a retired bridge engineer. The pair also co-authored “The Portland Bridge Book,” a guide to metro-area bridges.

The book soon will be for sale online at and in the gift shop at the Oregon Historical Society, 1200 S.W. Park Ave. in Portland, Sharon Wood Wortman said. Copies also will be available for purchase on Dec. 7 from noon to 7 p.m. at the Oregon Historical Society’s “Holiday Cheer: a Celebration of Oregon Authors” event and at the “Big and Awesome Bridges” official launch party on Dec. 13 from 1 to 4 p.m. in the Community Hall Annex at Portland Community College‘s Southeast campus, 2305 S.E. 82nd Ave.

A $25,000 donation from Portland Public Schools helped get the books printed. They will be especially helpful for teaching a bridge unit that has long been a part of the district’s third grade curriculum, Sharon Wood Wortman said.

“The Big and Awesome Bridges of Portland and Vancouver” includes historical information about 22 bridges that cross the Willamette and Columbia rivers in Portland, Oregon City and Vancouver, and interviews with bridge operators and engineers. It also has instructions for teachers to help their students build and load-test their own bridge models.

The printing process is nearly finished. Copies will be ready to deliver to school libraries and classrooms in Portland and Vancouver by mid-December, Sharon Wood Wortman said.

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One of Portland’s most well-known bridge historians is working to publish a book for students on the city’s bridges.

Sharon Wood Wortman, commonly referred to as the “bridge lady,” and her husband Ed Wortmanare leading a campaign to finance the publishing of the “The Big and Awesome Bridges of Portland and Vancouver: A Book for Young Readers.”

The book would include 100 pages of photos and drawings of more than 25 highways and pedestrian bridges in the area. Members of the Portland Community College Graphic Design Program will provide the book’s colorful, children-focused layout, Wortman said.

It would also include interviews with bridge operators, bridge engineers and others, including the Oregon Poet Laureate Paulann Petersen, who will explain how bridges have become some of the world’s oldest metaphors.

Wortman’s hope is to publish 4,000 copies of the book and give them to Portland Public Schools and Vancouver Public Schools for free.

“Bridges have been taught as part of PPS third grade social studies since at least the 1950s, but there has never been a book just for them, nor for Vancouver students,” Wortman said. “The idea is that youngsters who grow up understanding and appreciating the built environment around them will be better informed when it comes time for them to take care of it.”

With a group of more than 20 volunteers, Wortman has been fundraising for the project for almost two years. At this point, the group is halfway to its goal, but more funds are needed to cover the publishing costs, Wortman said.

To learn more about the fundraising effort, visit or . The group hopes to gain the funding by summer 2013.

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If you go:

When: Saturday, November 19, 2011, 1-4 p.m.

Where: Meet at Floyd’s Coffee, Northwest First Avenue and Couch Street

Cost: $55, includes a Portland-Vancouver Bridges poster

One Hundred percent of proceeds to Big & Awesome

After 20 years of leading tours of Portland’s bridges, Sharon Wood Wortman, author of The Portland Bridge Book, is working on a children’s book about the local bridges, The Big & Awesome Bridges of Portland & Vancouver—A Book for Young Readers.

Wortman plans to donate 5,000 free copies of the full-color, hardcover book to third grade classrooms in Portland Public Schools and fourth grade classrooms in the Vancouver, Wash., School District.

“It’s not cheap,” Wortman said. “PPS has been teaching about Portland’s bridges since at least the 1950s, but there’s never been comprehensive book for young people.”

Wortman is raising some of the funds to print the new book by hosting “bridge walks” with her husband Ed Wortman, who worked as a Multnomah County bridge engineer. The tours include a visit to the Oregon Department of Transportation Region 1 bridge museum and Traffic Management Operations Center, a meeting with the operator of the Burnside Bridge, and weather permitting, a test lift while standing mid-span or inside the bridge tower.

Much of the book is already finished, including patterns in back of the book that students can use to build their own replicas of Portland’s bridges. Students from the engineering program at Portland State University are slated to visit the classrooms to facilitate the bridge building and load test activity.

Those who cannot walk but wish to make a donation may visit . All donations are tax deductible.

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Bridge tour guide Sharon Wood Wortman took a group of high school students on a tour of Portland’s bridges as a part of National Engineers Week. The tour included a test lift of the Burnside Bridge.

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