TERREBONNE – It took three-quarters of a century for Lura McCaulou to ride into the history books for a second time, once again the first person to cross a new bridge spanning the 300-foot-deep Crooked River Gorge.

The new $18.3 million bridge is more than three times wider and cost 100 times more to build than the original “High Bridge,” built in 1926 and dedicated the following year.

McCaulou made Saturday’s ceremonial first trip in a 1919 Model T that, as it turned out, was four years older than her father’s $325, 1923 Model T, in which she became one of the first Jefferson County residents to cross the “High Bridge.” This time around, she made the trip across the “very nice” modern span with her grandson, Jeff, and 12-week-old great-granddaughter, Ila Ray.

McCaulou was 12 years old when she stayed at the High Bridge construction camp for a week before her mother and 16-year-old sister came to take her home to Madras. The crew boss “asked my sister if she wanted to drive across” the just-finished span, McCaulou recalled, sitting in the shade with friends and family at the Peter Skene Ogden Wayside north of Terrebonne.

“There had been two official cars from Salem earlier that day,” she recalled. “We drove up on planks,” because the bridge approach had not been completed. Was she scared? “Not that I can remember,” she said with a gentle laugh.

Earlier, as if on cue, the whistle of a northbound Union Pacific freight train briefly interrupted the first speech of Saturday’s dedication ceremony for the new U.S. Highway 97 bridge, “This is indeed a day when history meets the future,” said Bob Bryant, Oregon Department of Engineer (http://www.odot.state.or.us) region manager, who preceded ODOT Director Grace Crunican to the podium.

Historian speaks as father did in `27

Historian Lewis L. McArthur recalled at Saturday’s event how as a young boy he watched his father, Lewis A. McArthur, give an address at the High Bridge’s dedication ceremony. He can’t remember many of the details of that long-ago day, but he recounted the region’s transportation history, as well as his own “halcyon days” accompanying his father on Pullman car train trips from Portland to Bend.

“Why he dragged me along, I’m not sure,” McArthur said. “I think he wanted someone to lecture to.”

The new span’s designer-engineer, David Goodyear, told the crowd how the progress of technology allowed bridge builders to do their job “without getting our feet wet.” Henry Hewitt, chairman of the Oregon Transportation Commission, praised all involved for completing the 3-year project “virtually on time and on budget.”

Alyssa Macy, Miss Warm Springs 2000 of the Warm Springs Indian Reservation, was among those who said they were “terrified” when they drove across the old bridge and encountered oncoming semi trucks or RVs on the 26-foot-wide span. The old High Bridge isn’t going anywhere, however. Instead, it will take on a new role as a pedestrian and bicycle crossing.

Among a raft of impressive statistics about the 535-foot-long, 79-foot-wide bridge:, the 1-inch-thick steel rebar in the span would, if placed end to end, extend 132 miles. Almost 7,900 cubic yards of concrete went into the bridge, equal to 1,000 concrete mixer loads. The unusual design and construction technique has brought front-page attention in trade publications and a Discovery Channel TV special.

But bridges aren’t just about steel and concrete, or links between places, but connections between the past, present and future. That’s especially the case when a new bridge is built in such a dramatic setting, beside a pair of historic, still functioning spans.

’Me 5 years old, swinging across that bridge’

Metolius resident Fannie Regnier, 95, not only remembers the building of the 1926 highway bridge but the first span across the rocky canyon, the 1910-11 railroad bridge. Her great-grandparents settled in what was known as “Trail Crossing Flat,” beside the road that bordered the canyon and wound down to a place where horses, wagons and later horseless carriages could ford the river. Her first, much faster trip across the High Bridge was a bit unnerving, she said: “It just kind of scared me, riding across that.”

Regnier has lived in the area all her life and has seen a lot of progress and change – some good, some bad, much of it seemingly inevitable. “I wish it never happened, but I know it has to,” she said.

Three brothers – Hal, Lee and Walter Fauerso – sons of the High Bridge’s resident engineer, Chris Fauerso, rode in the vintage car parade with their sister, Elizabeth. A photo in Saturday’s program showed father and sons riding high across the gorge on the original span’s innovative high-line crane.

“I think that’s where I got my agoraphobia – me 5 years old, swinging across that bridge,” said Lee, now 78. The Fauerso brothers said their father was not yet a licensed civil engineer when the project bosses “took him under their wing” during the dangerous work on what was then the highest single-arched span in the country.

Like others on hand for the ceremony, Walter Fauerso, 80, could recall little of the High Bridge dedication ceremony. “It isn’t that we lose our memories,” he said. “You just pack so much in there that it’s hard to sort out.”

“Of all the bridges our dad built, this is the one he pointed to with pride,” Lee Fauerso said. “These men disdained nets when they built this bridge. They figured anyone who needed a net shouldn’t be working on it.” Do that now, brother Walter chimed in, and “OSHA and everybody else would be all over you.”

This entry was posted on Saturday, September 16th, 2000 at 4:06 pm and is filed under Top Stories. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.