Black-and-white photograph: three workers eating lunch on an unwrapped main cable of the St. Johns Bridge during construction, Portland, Oregon. Date: c. 1931.

St. Johns Bridge Under Construction, Portland, c. 1931

c. 1931  ·  Portland, Oregon

Three workers pause for lunch on a main cable of the St. Johns Bridge during its original construction. The roadway below is still raw timber decking, and the cable they sit on is unwrapped, its individual strands bound only with temporary banding — wrapping is the final stage of suspension-bridge construction and is permanent once done. Both details place the frame in the last phase of the 1929–1931 build; the bridge opened in June 1931.

Date
c. 1931
Location
Portland, Oregon
Archive ID
R13609
Photographer
Photo-Art Studio (Portland, Oregon)
Format
16-bit TIFF master · scanned from original negative
St. Johns BridgePortlandBridge WorkersBridge Construction1930s

Photo-Art Studio commercial archive (Portland, Oregon); acquired by Stephen Ingham 2001. Donated to the Oregon Historical Society in two parts — the bulk in 2002–2003 and the remainder in 2007 (Org. Lot 791); editorial rights retained.

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