Belknap Covered Bridge
Description
The Belknap Bridge occupies a site in which a covered bridge has been in continuous use since 1890. The neighboring community recognized the importance of a river crossing at that location and adopted the name "McKenzie Bridge." In 1911 the first bridge was replaced by Lane County with another covered structure. The third covered bridge at this site was erected in 1939 and was destroyed by the Christmas Flood of 1964. The current covered span was designed by Oregon Bridge Corporation of Springfield and built by contract let by the county. The bridge was opened in 1966.Several years later, louvered windows were added to the bridge to give interior illumination and to reduce the "box effect" of the windowless span. Extensive repairs in 1992 and 2002 strengthened the structure, and a new roof was installed.
(Reference: Roofs Over Rivers, by Bill and Nick Cockrell)
Facts
- Overview
- Covered Howe through truss bridge over Mckenzie River on King Road West
- Location
- Lane County, Oregon
- Status
- Open to traffic
- History
- Built 1966; rehabilitated 1992
- Design
- Covered Howe Through truss
- Dimensions
-
Length of largest span: 134.8 ft.
Total length: 181.1 ft.
Deck width: 21.0 ft.
Vertical clearance above deck: 15.7 ft.
- Recognition
- Posted to the National Register of Historic Places
- Also called
- McKenzie Bridge
- Approximate latitude, longitude
- +44.16778, -122.22806 (decimal degrees)
44°10'04" N, 122°13'41" W (degrees°minutes'seconds") - Approximate UTM coordinates
- 10/561715/4890797 (zone/easting/northing)
- USGS topographic map
- McKenzie Bridge
- Inventory numbers
- ORNBI 39C123111600001 (Oregon bridge number on the National Bridge Inventory)
BH 30039 (Bridgehunter.com ID) - Inspection (as of 04/2011)
- Deck condition rating: Good (7 out of 9)
Superstructure condition rating: Poor (4 out of 9)
Substructure condition rating: Satisfactory (6 out of 9)
Appraisal: Structurally deficient
Sufficiency rating: 22.5 (out of 100) - Average daily traffic (as of 2010)
- 240
Related Bridges
- Deerborn Island Bridge (Downstream)
Sources
- Mike Goff - michael [dot] goff [at] hotmail [dot] com
- Historic Highway Bridges of Oregon - Dwight A. Smith, James B. Norman & Pieter T. Dykman, Oregon Historical Society Press, 1989
- Belknap Covered Bridge - Oregon Covered Bridge Guide
- Wikipedia - Belknap Covered Bridge
Comments
Will,
The waters in our region are beginning to recede. The northern half of the Oregon and Washington State were hit the hardest. A single bridge was partially washed out and a few hundred yards of roadway were completely washed out near Mt. Hood in the northern part of Oregon. I have not heard of any major damage from Washington at this point in time.
Our hydraulics engineer has developed a computer program that will trigger alerts for scour critical bridge during a pre-determined rain event. If a large rainfall occurs the program will tell us which bridges need to be more closely monitored based on the scour susceptibility of the bridge and calculated flows of the river. It is a pretty neat tool for flood events; it helps guide maintenance crews and inspectors when problems start occuring.
I am not sure how much freeboard the Belknap Bridge actually has during low water. The photo that I posted was during pretty highway, just not as much as the news article photo you shared. I can tell you that the approach alignments at the Belknap site would limit any raising of the structure, so I would imagine it is not built to high water standards.
Mike
Mike - Is your areas highwater receding yet? Post flood inspections in the offing? Scour seems probable for some of your inventory.
How high is the Belknap off the water at normal levels? I noticed one of your photos does not show much more freeboard than this flood photo shot two days ago http://tiny.cc/e9dz2 Seems a bit unusual for a late 20th century bridge.
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