The Hawthorne Bridge is a steel through-truss structure spanning the Willamette River, instantly recognizable by its pair of one hundred sixty-five-foot-tall towers. It opened on December nineteenth, nineteen ten, replacing a wooden Madison Street bridge that had been destroyed by fire. Designed by the firm of Waddell and Harrington, the bridge is the oldest operating vertical-lift bridge in the United States. Its middle section rises one hundred ten feet to allow river traffic to pass, a mechanical feat performed by two one hundred fifty-horsepower motors.
Hawthorne Bridge
landmark
The audio tour continues in the Mira app →