Stone Bridge and the Oregon Central Military Wagon Road, Military road bridge in Plush, Oregon
The Stone Bridge is a road bridge in Lake County, Oregon, consisting of a roughly quarter-mile elevated causeway built from basalt rocks dragged into place by hand. The structure connects two lakes and formed part of a military transportation route that helped the Army move across this isolated region.
The United States Army built this structure in 1867 to connect two lakes and later integrated it with a military transportation route. After a nearby fort closed in the late 1870s, local ranchers kept using this causeway for their own purposes.
The bridge reflects how military construction shaped a remote frontier region, showing the practical methods settlers used to navigate challenging landscapes.
This site is located in a remote area accessible via rough roads that can become difficult depending on the season. Visitors should expect unpaved terrain and bring appropriate clothing for changing weather conditions.
Building this structure required workers to haul heavy basalt boulders over long distances from nearby Hart Mountain, which was remarkable given the primitive equipment of the era. This manual method reveals the limits of early engineering efforts in remote wilderness.
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