Bridge of the Gods, over the Columbia River

The Bridge of the Gods is a steel truss cantilever bridge that spans the Columbia River between Cascade Locks, Oregon and Washington state near Stevenson.

The bridge was built by the Wauna Toll Bridge Company of Walla Walla, Washington and opened in 1926 as a 1,127 ft bridge. The higher river levels resulting from the construction of the Bonneville Dam required the bridge to be further elevated and extended to its current length of 1,856 ft.

The bridge is named after a famous geologic event also known as Bridge of the Gods.

The original Bridge of the Gods was created by the Bonneville Slide, which dammed the Columbia River in the modern-day Pacific Northwest of the United States in the eighteenth century. It was a landslide across the Columbia 200 feet high. It has been verified geologically, and there are native legends of it.

Photo 516, Sept 2006