The Sam Hill Memorial Bridge, also known as the Biggs Rapids Bridge, is a steel truss bridge that carries U.S. Highway 97 across the Columbia River between Biggs Junction, Oregon in Sherman County and Maryhill, Washington in Klickitat County. It was named in honor of the early bridge proponent and builder of the nearby Maryhill Museum, Sam Hill.
The bridge was opened on November 1, 1962 after two years of construction. It was initially a toll bridge, but the tolls were removed in 1975.
The bridge was closed during part of 2007-2008 in order to complete repairs to the deck. Originally the Washington State Department of Transportation planned to replace the entire deck in 2010, but accelerated the project due to rapidly deteriorating roadway. By March 2009 the project was finished at a total cost of project $16 million, split evenly between Oregon and Washington. It included replacing the deck with concrete, installing new railing, improving the drainage systems, and replacing the existing lighting. The new deck is expected to last 25 years.
Famous quotes containing the words sam, hill, memorial and/or bridge:
“Well, it’s early yet!”
—Robert Pirosh, U.S. screenwriter, George Seaton, George Oppenheimer, and Sam Wood. Dr. Hugo Z. Hackenbush (Groucho Marx)
“Tawny are the leaves turned, but they still hold.
It is the harvest; what shall this land produce?
A meager hill of kernels, a runnel of juice.
Declension looks from our land, it is old.”
—John Crowe Ransom (1888–1974)
“I hope there will be no effort to put up a shaft or any monument of that sort in memory of me or of the other women who have given themselves to our work. The best kind of a memorial would be a school where girls could be taught everything useful that would help them to earn an honorable livelihood; where they could learn to do anything they were capable of, just as boys can. I would like to have lived to see such a school as that in every great city of the United States.”
—Susan B. Anthony (1820–1906)
“I was at work that morning. Someone came riding like mad
Over the bridge and up the road—Farmer Rouf’s little lad.
Bareback he rode; he had no hat; he hardly stopped to say,
“Morgan’s men are coming, Frau, they’re galloping on this way.”
—Constance Fenimore Woolson (1840–1894)