The two bridges cross the
Pend d'Oreille at its mouth, just before it empties into the Columbia. This, the original bridge, was built in 1893, being completed on June 22nd of that year by the
Nelson & Fort Sheppard Railway. The name comes from a misspelling of
Fort Shepherd, a Hudson's Bay Trading Post across the Columbia, just north of the Canada-U.S. border. This bridge saw service as a railway bridge until 1945 when the Great Northern, which had by then bought out the N&FS, began carrying heavier loads than the bridge had been designed for. When the new railway bridge came into service, this one was repurposed as a single lane highway bridge. It is less than a mile north of a border crossing which, luckily, is not terribly busy, as this remains a single lane in width.
Given that this bridge was built in 1893 and the first gasoline-powered car in Vancouver didn't arrive until 1904, it's difficult to conceive of an older highway bridge existing in BC.
BY GREG NESIEROFF
It could be West Kootenay's Peace Arch: a Canadian bridge
built by Americans for an American railroad using an American camp, and later converted into a highway bridge thanks to the initiative
of another American.
It's been called the "oldest operational high-way bridge in B.C."
but probably doesn't need so many qualifying adjectives.
If it's not the province's oldest bridge of any stripe, it's close.
In the last few years, it's received some over-due attention both
as a result of a major upgrade, and a campaign to replace it.
Despite its age, its history is not widely known, nor is the fact
that its architect went on to become the 20th century's most noted hydroelectric engineer.
The bridge is a steel truss bridge of exactly 500 feet in length. It rests on a pair of concrete filled steel piers in the river and concrete abutments on each bank. The design is that of a double cantilever, with the two halves of the centre section cantilevered from the piers.
The contract for the bridge was won by the San Francisco Bridge Company for a bid of $47,000, with the superstructure being subcontracted to the California Steel Bridge Company and the castings being made by Dominion Bridge in Montreal. The design was the brainchild of self taught engineer Hugh Lincoln Cooper, who worked for the San Francisco Bridge Company. Given its rather striking appearance, people from miles around came to gawk as it was being built. Its appearance also caused it to be awarded the sobriquet "Cooper's Grasshopper" by chief engineer E.J. Roberts.
Parking is available on the west side of Highway 22A, just past either end of the bridge. And, for the benchmark hunters, there is one each end of one or the other of the two bridges and another about 25 feet southeast of the southern end of the adjacent bridge.