Bridges Over Umatilla County: Local Enterprise

  Just a mile and a half downriver [from McNary Dam] is another structure. The bridge at Umatilla. I am sure that you who live here are just as proud of that bridge as you are of this tremendous dam. You have every right to be. That bridge at Umatilla is an example of local responsibility, properly assumed. A major difference between the two undertakings is in size. . . the bridge at Umatilla was a much smaller effort. Local enterprise, in this case the county government, was able to shoulder the five million dollar loan that made that construction possible. And so, local enterprise did the job. President Dwight D. Eisenhower at the McNary Dam Dedication, Sept. 23, 1954

This small bridge built in the 1930s spans the Umatilla River at its confluence with the Columbia. Photo courtesy of the Umatilla Museum and Historical Foundation

Entrance to McNary Dam. The Umatilla Bridge to Paterson now connects eastern Oregon and Washington in the distance on the left. Photo by Donna Sinclair, 1999

    McNary Dam also influenced the choice of Umatilla for a Columbia River crossing. Transportation systems changed when railroad lines and the old Wallula Highway were inundated by Lake Wallula, the reservoir behind the dam. In 1952, five bridges and eight ferries crossed the Columbia from the river's mouth at Astoria, Oregon, to Pasco, Washington. The bridge at Umatilla was proposed to connect the states of Washington and Oregon, passing through the rapidly developing, newly irrigated Columbia River areas, facilitating increased business betweeen the two states, and providing tourist access to the dam touted by 1950 as "the greatest single tourist attraction in the entire Northwest."

"McNary Dam" in a Report on a Proposed Highway Bridge Across the Columbia River

Ferry and Traffic Statistics

Hermiston Herald articles planning the Umatilla Bridge

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