By the first decade of the twentieth century, Newport, Washington, had already become a bustling town that served as a regional rail hub and a gateway to commerce with Idaho via the Newport Ferry. Yet in an age rapidly dominated by automobiles and trucks, the region lacked one vital transportation link: a vehicular bridge across the Pend Oreille River. In 1913, the Washington legislature passed a measure to construct a bridge linking Newport with Oldtown, Idaho, but Governor Ernest Lister vetoed the bill, determining that “the state would not be justified in expending $50,000.00” on the project. In 1920, private entities erected Pend Oreille County’s first vehicular bridges at Usk and Metaline Falls, but no viable bridge plan had yet developed for Newport. Finally, in 1926, the establishment of the federal numbered highway system hastened the need for an interstate bridge; construction began that year on a bridge connecting U.S. Highway 2 between Newport and Oldtown.

Opened in 1927, the Interstate Bridge linked Washington’s Pend Oreille Highway with Idaho’s Clark Fork Highway. The section of road was also part of the National Parks Highway and the Theodore Roosevelt International Highway. Truly interstate in its execution, the Washington State Highway Department prepared the bridge design while the Idaho Department of Public Works oversaw the construction. However, because of terrain, the bridge was sited entirely in Idaho just south of the point where the Pend Oreille River marks the state boundary. Regardless, the bridge benefited commerce for both states—particularly Newport’s Humbrid Lumber Company and the logging industry more generally. Built of steel and Metaline Falls concrete, the 1,246-foot-long bridge included electric lighting and a timber-plank sidewalk—features that set it apart from other Pend Oreille River bridges. The bridge served the region for 60 years before being replaced by the Oldtown Bridge in 1988, a time when a traffic volume of nearly 60,000 vehicles per day strained the original structure’s capacity.

Credits and Sources:

Bamonte, Tony, and Susan Schaeffer Bamonte. History of Pend Oreille County. Spokane: Tornado Creek Publications, 1996.

Unknown. “Newport Interstate Bridge to be Dedicated July 9th,” The Newport Miner, July 7, 1927.

Unknown. “Bridge Timeline.” The Miner, November 9, 1988.

Herbst, Rebecca. “Oldtown Bridge.” Historic American Engineering Record, HAER No. ID-7, February 1982.

Washington State Legislature,House of Representatives. House Journal of the Thirteenth Legislature of the State of Washington. January 13, 1913.

Photographs courtesy of the Pend Oreille County Historical Society.