History
The original, swing-span bridge was built in 1906–08 by the Spokane, Portland and Seattle Railway (SP&S), as part of construction of a new line between Vancouver, Washington and Portland. SP&S was formed jointly by the Northern Pacific Railway and Great Northern Railway, originally as the Portland & Seattle Railway, to build and ultimately operate new railroad lines from Portland to Seattle and Portland to Spokane, but was renamed Spokane, Portland & Seattle Railway—in early 1908, before opening any track sections—after construction of the Portland–Spokane line got under way before the Seattle line. The planned new railroad was commonly referred to as the "North Bank road" (road being short for railroad or railroad line), or North Bank line, because the Seattle line would follow the Columbia River's north bank as far as Kelso and the Spokane line would also follow the north bank, running east from Vancouver. East from Portland, the south bank of the Columbia already had a rail line, owned by the Oregon Railroad and Navigation Company (later absorbed by Union Pacific Railroad).
Read more about this topic: Burlington Northern Railroad Bridge 5.1
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“In history as in human life, regret does not bring back a lost moment and a thousand years will not recover something lost in a single hour.”
—Stefan Zweig (18811942)
“It would be naive to think that peace and justice can be achieved easily. No set of rules or study of history will automatically resolve the problems.... However, with faith and perseverance,... complex problems in the past have been resolved in our search for justice and peace. They can be resolved in the future, provided, of course, that we can think of five new ways to measure the height of a tall building by using a barometer.”
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“The history of the past is but one long struggle upward to equality.”
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