Deception Pass Bridge still rock-solid after 75 years
A celebration marking the bridge's opening is planned Saturday
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Michael O'Leary / Herald file
The view of the east side of the Deception Pass Bridge looking south from Pass Island in February 2007.
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Washington State Department of Transportation
Wooden "false work" is built to support construction of the steel trusses for the Deception Pass Bridge. The Pass Island concrete pier for the bridge can be seen to the right in the foreground and the Whidbey Island pier in the background.
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Washington State Department of Transportation No concrete trucks here. The concrete was made in small batches on site, then trucked to the bridge before being dumped into a small rail cart and out to the bridge deck.
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Washington State Department of Transportation
Crews pour the Deception Pass bridge deck. The concrete, delivered by rail cart, had to be shoveled into wheel barrows (called concrete buggies) before being poured onto the bridge deck.
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Washington State Department of Transportation
A fishing boat passes by the Whidbey Island piers on the south end of the Deception Pass Bridge.
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Washington State Department of Transportation
The Deception Pass Bridge nears completion.
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Dan Bates / Herald File
The Lady Washington fires black powder cannons as it passes beneath the Deception Pass Bridge in August 2002.
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His class went on a school field trip in 1935 to get a look.
"We all had a little sack lunch and marched off to see it," said Funk, now 88, of Anacortes. "A grand tour on a hot spring day."
Seventy-five years later, the two-part span is still in great shape, officials say. A day-long celebration marking the 75th anniversary of the bridge's opening is planned Saturday.
The two parts of the bridge, over Deception Pass and Canoe Pass, were built in a little more than a year during the Great Depression, according to the Historic American Engineering Record.
The bridge has never been rebuilt nor had a major overhaul, said Dave Chesson, a spokesman for the state Department of Transportation.
"It's an incredibly sturdy bridge that was built on solid rock. As long as it's maintained, it should last well into the future," he said.
The bridge is inspected every two years, Chesson said, most recently in March 2009. Maintenance includes cleaning off rust and spot-painting the steel.
"At some point, it may become more expensive to maintain the (two spans) than it is to replace them," he said. "But we are not at that point now, and it is not in the foreseeable future."
The New Deal project was awarded in June 1934 to Puget Construction Co. of Seattle for $304,775. Wallace Bridge and Structural Steel of Seattle made and delivered the steel beams. The Civilian Conservation Corps helped build the park and roadway leading to the bridges.
Cement was mixed in small batches and hauled out to the work sites in railroad carts, Chesson said.
"There wasn't a lot of machinery to help accomplish a lot of those tasks," he said.
Before the bridge, people were taken between Whidbey and Fidalgo islands by a ferry that held about four or five cars, Funk said.
"There was a little ferry system that was about as quaint as it could be," said Funk, who went on to become editor of the Whidbey News Times and South Whidbey Record from 1964 to 1989, and owner and editor of the Anacortes American before that.
Later, in the mid-1960s, Funk recalls that thousands of people crowded the bridge when Shamu the orca was taken through Deception Pass after capture on the way to the Seattle Aquarium.
"Traffic was blocked for miles," he said.
The bridge is one of the most photographed sites in the state, Funk believes.
One day recently, he saw about 150 people out on the bridge taking photos.
"The occasion was there was sunshine," he said.
Bridge facts
- The Deception Pass Bridge was a New Deal project financed by the federal Public Works Administration, the Washington state Emergency Relief Association and county funds.
- The spans were opened to traffic on July 31, 1935. The Canoe Pass Bridge spans 450 feet and is a steel arch design. The Deception Pass Bridge spans 900 feet and is a steel cantilever design.
- Height from water to roadway: about 180 feet, depending on the tide.
- Width of bridge deck: 28 feet, including two 11-foot lanes with 3-foot sidewalks on each side.
- Total length: 1,487 feet (more than a quarter mile).
- Traffic counts for 2009 show roughly 15,000 trips per day.
Saturday's festivities
A celebration marking the 75th anniversary of the opening of the Deception Pass Bridge is planned Saturday.
Festivities begin at 11 a.m. with a picnic at Cranberry Lake in Deception Pass State Park, including vendors, games, displays and music. More musical entertainment is planned for 7 p.m.
The bridge will close at 12:27 p.m. for a procession of vintage pre-1935 cars followed by Whidbey-based EA-18G and EA-6B jets flying over the bridge. The bridge will be closed to traffic for three minutes during the fly over
Drivers headed across Deception Pass should be prepared for congestion. Bus service through Island Transit also will be available throughout the day. For more information, call 360-707-5056 or visit www.deceptionpassfoundation.org.
For more information on Island Transit schedules, go to www.islandtransit.org/routes/19.
Bill Sheets: 425-339-3439; sheets@heraldnet.com.
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