BNSF Railway Bridge
Built beginning in 1940, this bridge replaced another railway bridge that was submerged with the completion of the Grande Coulee Dam and the subsequent formation of Roosevelt Lake.
Originally slated to be a bridge shared with the adjacent road bridge, plans for this scheme went awry and two separate bridges were constructed, with construction on each starting in 1940.
This steel truss cantilever railway bridge was built to essentially the same design as the road bridge, with a more or less straight top and sloping bottom chords to minimize the length of the concrete supporting piers. It carries approximately 1250 feet of the tracks of the
Burlington Northern & Santa Fe Railroad over the Columbia River 6 km. west of the BNSF yards in
Kettle Falls.
The bridge's designer is unknown, but it was riveted together by the
American Bridge Company in 1940, according to the cast iron plaque mounted on it.
Columbia River Road Bridge
Construction began on this two lane, 1266 foot steel truss bridge in 1940. Designed as a cantilever bridge, in order to shorten the concrete supporting piers, the bridge has a fairly straight top line with sloping bottom chords. The two outer sections of the bridge each consist of 150 (46 m) foot cantilever spans and 225 (69 m) foot anchor spans, the two supporting a 300 (92 m) foot central span. Outside of the anchor spans are two approach spans, the eastern one 143-feet (44 m) in length and the western one 73-feet (22 m). The two concrete piers are 600 feet (180 m) apart.
This bridge crosses the Columbia River immediately south of the Burlington Northern & Santa Fe Railroad Bridge, also built in 1940. Opened to traffic on May 3, 1941, this bridge, as well as the adjacent railroad bridge are significant due to the fact that they were constructed with the longest central spans built in Washington in the 1940s.
The bridge was designed by R.W. Finke of the Washington Department of Highways and was raised by the L. Romano Engineering Company of Seattle. The initial plan was to built a single, dual purpose bridge for the road and railway, but plans "gang aft a-gley" and ultimately, two separate bridges were built instead.
The Kettle Falls road bridge was listed on the National Register of Historic Places on March 28, 1995.