If you’re interested in transportation history in Oregon, you might want to check out these historic documents available for checkout from the Oregon State Library. One of our partners recommended these documents and even digitized the images from them. Thank you R. P. for sharing these with us!

 

Oregon’s Highway Park System 1921-1989 is an administrative history of the Oregon Parks Department, which was a part of the Oregon Department of Transportation until 1989 when the Oregon Legislature designated it as its own agency. The publication, written by Lawrence C. Merriam, Jr. and David Talbot, is a detailed account of Oregon’s system of parks and the people who made today’s treasured public assets a reality.

​	This photo of Cove Palisades State Park is just one of many beautiful photos featured in the document.​

 

 

Historic Highway Bridges of Oregon is a comprehensive history and inventory of historic highway bridges. Published in 1985 and written by Dwight A. Smith, James B. Norman and Peter T. Dykman, the book contains over two hundred photographs and descriptions illustrating the rich legacy of bridge building in this state.

 

The first Morrison Street Bridge, a timber structure built in 1887 across the Willamette River in Portland, was replaced in 1905 by a steel bridge (shown in this 1921 photo). The swing span was open, and deck repairs were underway. The Hawthorne Bridge (1910) appears in the background. A third generation Morrison Street Bridge was completed in 1958.

 

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