Structure
The Goodpasture Bridge was designed by the Oregon State Highway Department (now the Oregon Department of Transportation) and was built by Lane County. A.C. Striker was the county bridge superintendent at the time of its construction. It was built to allow local families and commercial logging trucks to cross the McKenzie River.
The Goodpasture Bridge is a classic covered bridge in design. The deck is 17.7 feet (5.4 m) wide with vertical clearance of 15.3 feet (4.7 m). The bridge's two foundation tiers are concrete. Its wooden floor planks and shingled roof are intact, as is the weatherboard housing that protects the Howe truss infrastructure from the weather.
Most of Oregon's covered bridges, including the Goodpasture Bridge, were built using the Howe truss system, developed in 1840 by the Massachusetts architect William Howe. The system uses heavy timbers reinforced with iron or steel rods. The trusses have central beams and crossed timbers with adjustable, vertical iron rods to support the structural load.
The Goodpasture Bridge is one of the most photographed bridges in the state of Oregon. The bridge's architectural detailing includes false end beams, semi-elliptical portals, and ten Gothic style louvered windows on each side. The windows were built to allow light into the long covered structure so drivers could see oncoming traffic. During the Christmas season, the bridge is hung with decorations, attracting many winter visitors.
Read more about this topic: Goodpasture Bridge
Famous quotes containing the word structure:
“What is the most rigorous law of our being? Growth. No smallest atom of our moral, mental, or physical structure can stand still a year. It grows—it must grow; nothing can prevent it.”
—Mark Twain [Samuel Langhorne Clemens] (1835–1910)
“Man is more disposed to domination than freedom; and a structure of dominion not only gladdens the eye of the master who rears and protects it, but even its servants are uplifted by the thought that they are members of a whole, which rises high above the life and strength of single generations.”
—Karl Wilhelm Von Humboldt (1767–1835)
“What is the structure of government that will best guard against the precipitate counsels and factious combinations for unjust purposes, without a sacrifice of the fundamental principle of republicanism?”
—James Madison (1751–1836)