The Portland Bridge Book

by Sharon Wood, Jay Dee Alley (Painter)

Wortman offers technical information, history, and anecdotes for 12 bridges across the Willamette River, two across the Columbia River, and several railroad bridges in the Portland (Oregon) vicinity. Since the 1989 first edition, she has been leading bridge walks for children and adults, and has married a bridge engineer. The second edition adds more poetry, a couple of songs, a glossary of terms, a list of owners and web sites, and an index. The chronology has also been extended to 2001, and the captions updated. The superb line drawings of prospects and details are by Jay Dee Alley, about whom no more information is provided. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

Paperback

First published June 1, 2003

Reviews

[Julian Dunn · Rating 4 out of 5]

An extremely high-quality coffee table book, self-published by a remarkable person, Sharon Wood Wortman, who in the early 2000s was known as "Portland's Bridge Lady", in keeping with her obsession with Portland bridges (and her sharing of knowledge via talks, tours, field trips with schoolchildren, and so on). Wood Wortman has her own fascinating history which you can read about on the foregoing article, but the fact that she remortgaged her home and spend $89,000 on updating and publishing the third edition of this book (previous editions were printed by the Oregon Historical Society) shows her determination.

The book gets a little technical at times, even on the scale of a book targeted at the type of nerd (like myself) that reads books like this. I also wish that Wood Wortman had obtained updated photographs of a few of the bridges; even in 2008, for example, the Steel Bridge already had the bicycle and pedestrian path attached to its south side, Wood Wortman makes reference to it in her prose, but the accompanying photographs don't show it. Aside from these minor quibbles, the book has held up remarkably well for the last 15 years. Only the Sellwood Bridge has been replaced, and the Tilikum Crossing is a bridge not conceived of at that time. The Interstate Bridge replacement project, the Columbia River Crossing (CRC) was killed by Washington State legislators years ago, and the current plans for a replacement seem unlikely to come to fruition anytime soon (or until the Cascadia Subduction Zone earthquake forces the hands of bureaucrats).

All in all, a pretty niche title, but authoritative for the subject matter it covers.

[Danika Jones · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great photos and history. I enjoyed this. Would be a good book for a historian, a bridge fan or engineer, architects, or a neat coffee table book. I read it from the library, and don't feel the need to own it, but enjoyed it nonetheless. I think I had the 3rd edition? Nothing about our most recent bridge, the Tillicum crossing in there, but still good history.

[Gus · Rating 5 out of 5]

Everything you ever wanted to know about the bridges of Portland. Thorough and "Riveting."

[Christian Lei · Rating 5 out of 5]

Technical but interesting none the less, could perhaps include fun facts too but none the less incredibly interesting. Especially the figures of how the bridges move and the pictures of old ones.