Corvallis and Eastern Covered railroad bridge

This is an examples of the covered railroad bridges that were once so numerous across the west portion of Oregon. Unfortunately, there is only one remaining example of these types of bridges left that I know of, that is the Chambers Railroad Bridge in Cottage Grove Oregon.

In fact, these bridges were so common they were rarely named other then by the rail line it was on follow by a number.

In this case this is simply the Corvallis and Eastern Covered railroad bridge. It is described in the Ben Maxwell archives as being “between” Toldeo and Elk City, crossing the Yaquina river, “near” Chitwood. Of course looking at a map will show that geography doesn’t exactly let that happen.

True, “near” is a relative term. We’re only talking a few miles there. I suspect that in truth this was closer to Chitwood and use of “between Elk City and Toledo” is incorrect. Assuming that the current rail road closely follows the original route (and there is very little reason to doubt it doesn’t,) there are three separate places within a mile that the current rail road route crosses the Yaquina River. On top of that, the rail road does not cross the Yaquina anywhere between Elk City or Toledo.

This photo was taken in 1943, and is interesting because you can see smoke damage from the steam trains. The ladder along the side goes up to the roof where you can barely see a barrel is stored. That was filled with water so that fires on the bridge, caused by the embers from the steam engines, could be put out.

If you have any information about which of the at least three river crossing this bridge could have been at, please let me know.