The Dalles Bridge, Steel cantilever truss bridge across Columbia River between The Dalles, Oregon and Dallesport, Washington, United States.
The Dalles Bridge is a steel cantilever truss bridge crossing the Columbia River between The Dalles, Oregon, and Dallesport, Washington. It carries US Route 197 and links Interstate 84 on the Oregon side with Washington State Route 14 on the north bank.
A ferry had been carrying people across the river at this spot since 1854, but the bridge did not open until 1953 after decades of planning. Dam construction on this stretch of the Columbia was already underway and shaped how the project was carried out.
The name comes from the French word "dalle", used by early fur traders to describe the rocky narrows of the Columbia River in this area. Anyone crossing today can still see the wide rocky walls along the river that gave the place its name.
The bridge is easy to cross by car as part of a main route between Oregon and Washington, and signs along Interstate 84 guide drivers directly toward it. Those coming from the Washington side follow State Route 14 west to reach the crossing without going through any town center.
During construction, engineers used prefabricated steel parts originally intended for other projects, partly because dam development on the river was happening at the same time and affected material availability. The result was a structure that quietly absorbed the constraints of two overlapping infrastructure projects.
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