Falls Water at Bridge Ceremony - Spokane, WA
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T0SHEA
N 47° 39.582 W 117° 25.589
11T E 467977 N 5278566
The Spokane Spokesman-Review posted an announcement of the impending opening of Spokane's beautiful new concrete Monroe Street Bridge on the day of its opening, November 23rd, 1911. The article appeared in the centre of Page 5.
Waymark Code: WMJTJ5
Location: Washington, United States
Date Posted: 12/29/2013
Views: 3
The Monroe Street Bridge
Completed in 1911 at a cost of $500,000, has one of the largest monolithic concrete arches in the world. The single center span measures 281 feet in length, 71 feet in width, 136 feet in height, and weighs 13,430 tons. Small arches above the main piers carry out the graceful design of the bridge; concrete buffalo skulls are affixed to the sides of the roadway. The structure, designed by city engineers with the firm of Cutter and Malgram as consulting architect, has been cited for its beauty; drawings and plans of the bridge are on exhibit at the Sorbonne, Paris.
Washington: a guide to the Evergreen state - Page 257-258
Given that the guide was written in the 1930s we may take the above superlative with a grain of salt, in that there are certainly many "monolithic concrete arches" of greater length extant today. That said, the bridge still stands, daily carrying thousands of vehicles and pedestrians over the Spokane River Below.
A seemingly unlucky location for a bridge, this is the third built on the spot. The first, a wooden bridge thankfully burned down in 1890, one year after its construction, and the second, a steel bridge, proved not to be up to the task, resulting in its replacement by the present arch span in 1910. This bridge underwent a substantial restoration beginning in 2003 and was reopened in 2005. An interesting feature of the bridge is the concrete buffalo skulls mounted on the pavilions.
