Oregon DOT replaces century-old bridge, moves it 12 miles to a new home

Updated Nov 8, 2016

The Oregon Department of Transportation has completed the replacement of a bridge that is more than a century old in Minam.

According to a report from The Observer, after the historic 1911 Deer Creek Road Bridge was deemed not up to current requirements, ODOT and the State Historic Preservation Office worked to find it a new home. The department designed a replacement to fit the existing abutments and meet the more stringent bridge standards of today.

In May, the historic bridge was moved 12 miles down Highway 82 from Minam to the Nez Perce Homeland Project Tamkaliks Powwow grounds in Wallowa late at night to avoid traffic conflicts.

However, contractors hit a snag installing the new bridge in Minam when it didn’t fit the abutments. The Observer reports that unexpected extra work pushed the cost of the replacement to $1.9 million, more than twice the original estimate of $800,000.

“The historic mitigation work was additional work we hadn’t encountered before, to this degree,” Ken Patterson, area manager of the La Grande office of the Oregon Department of Transportation (ODOT), told the news agency. Patterson added that preserving the historic bridge while moving it and reinstalling it 12 miles away increased the cost and complexity of the project, but was required in order for the project to receive federal funding.

“Generally the abutments did not turn out to be what everyone thought they were,” Patterson told the news agency, adding that the problems they faced placing a new bridge on old abutments started when ODOT couldn’t locate the plans for the bridge’s Minam installation in 1940. He added that the lack of historical information on the bridge construction complicated the replacement of the superstructure, and even though the abutments were tested and appeared suitable for reuse, “It turned out that they were hollow, which meant we needed some additional design. That added more work to the contract.”

The hollow parts of the abutments were modified and made sound, but Susan Roberts, Wallowa County Board of Commissioners chairman, told the news agency that because of the cost overrun, the county was liable for a percentage of the project with $63,000 being added to the original $80,000 bill.

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The county completed its portion of the work in mid-October, and the bridge was reopened to traffic.

“The bridge will serve the area for another 75 years,” Patterson told the news agency.