vernonia’s
voice local news
october
2007
Have I Got a Bridge For You...
21
By Penny Smejkal
We sold our bridge in October 2006...it was the one located
out near Johnny Serafin’s place on Hwy 47 before being re-
placed by the new modern concrete one; I wonder just when
it was replaced. I can remember driving at age sixteen over
the old steel bridge, fearful of meeting a car while crossing
the river as the bridge was only sixteen feet wide(inside di-
mensions).
I asked Fran Fletcher about the date because I thought her
husband Dan would remember...he didn’t. Fran remembered
the old one was still in place when she went to work at West
day, and then a little shorter distance the third day to make
our 1,440 mile trip. Our first night we stayed in Meridian,
Idaho at a huge truck stop.
Tsay…sort of slur the “t”), will also use the new crossing,
plus quite a lot of Native Americans. Utes, Zunis and Navajo
live all around the area and next to this little island of land.
A reefer (refrigerator) truck parked right next to us late at
night, I thought a locomotive was passing through.
When Tse Bonito’s crossing (comprised of several huge cul-
verts covered with dirt) washed out in August 2005, the presi-
dent of the Navajo Nation sent people to help the community.
They brought the little community water, porta potties and
groceries, and also allowed them to cross their private roads
to get to the town of Window Rock.
The following night we drove just past Big Rock Candy
Mountain near Richfield, Utah. Big Rock Candy Mountain
is bright sulphur-yellow mountain, with what looks like
chocolate fudge topping. Quite beautiful, it seemed to glow
about sundown, al-
most translucent.
Looking forward
to a more restful
nights sleep, we
stayed overnight in
a closed rest area
there.
The next morning,
as we were leav-
ing, I told Ken that
I had some trash to
put in the can be-
fore we got onto
the highway. We
didn’t see any trash
cans at the entrance
to the rest area, but
there was one back
in a ways and up a
little hill.
Oregon Electric in May of 1958.
A “Pony” Truss Bridge.
We learned that it’s called a pony truss bridge. Vernonia still
has a truss bridge on the north end of town; formerly known
as King’s bridge by my family, it’s more commonly called
the “green” bridge these days.
Truss bridges are just about impossible to move with out
dismantling completely. The bridges are riveted; after the
rivets are heated, they are thrown somehow and caught with
a bucket by a man on the bridge who pounds the white hot
round metal rivets through the holes of the bridge stringers,
etc., thus holding the pieces together…on-site. That may be
a lost art now.
Likely, the most relocated bridge in Oregon
The bridge first went to Seaside, purchased by the golf course
there. They kept it about fifteen years, but it never was put
to use.
It was then sold to a man named Campbell who intended to
place it somewhere on his property near the three-mile post
on Hwy 26. He sandblasted it, had it engineered, then got
old and died.
A junkie (the old fashioned kind that still buys and sells junk
metal) bought it and it sat for some more years.
When our friend, who lives in Gearhart, told us that it was
for sale we bought it. Before my husband Ken and I brought
it home, we took it apart, had two pieces 125’ long, each
one 13’ wide at the widest point. It was hauled on a steering
trailer, pulled by a truck.
We had it for about a year and a half, advertised it on the
Internet a couple of times and finally sold it to a mortician in
Window Rock, Arizona. So the story begins…
More dismantling
After it sold and we were paid, we then cut it in half again...
so we had four pieces that were 62’ 10” long, plus seven
cross-brace pieces. The total weight was about 37,000
pounds. Right up until the last cross pieces were loaded, we
didn’t know if we were going to drive to Window Rock pull-
ing a utility-trailer loaded with the bridge pieces or our travel
trailer. Fortunately for us, the mortician (our buyer) found
a heavy-haul company (Atlantic and Pacific) in Vancouver
Washington to haul the bridge about 1,550 miles, by way of
the Interstate highways.
Roadtrip
We left Nov 2, happy to be pulling a travel trailer instead of
37,000 pounds of steel down the Interstate. The first two
days on the road were long days, at about 500 miles each
As I got out of
the pickup, I saw
a black dog wagging its tail at me, and sort of prancing...I
walked towards him and he walked with me on up the hill,
bouncing like a puppy does, glad to have my company it
seemed...I tossed the trash and then turned back towards the
pickup. The dog, a Rottwieller, grabbed the bottom of my
jeans above my shoe, and so I had to sort of drag him as I
started back.
I told him ‘no’ and ‘stop’ several times, each time he’d let go
and look up at me and bark a couple of times and then grab
hold again...it wasn’t like he was mean, but I wasn’t positive
of that.
Dog in tow, I worked my way back to the pickup. Ken had
turned around and pulled down the hill about one hundred
yards waiting for me to return; he couldn’t see me out of
either mirror, nor hear me if I yelled for him. The dog must
have tired of me though, as I got to the pickup he let go…and
I was happy to be on the road again as we began our journey
for the third day.
We’d left the day after the “heavy haul” truck did and got
to
Window
Rock a day and
a half before it.
The driver was
stopped Friday
night at the Utah
border
near
Page, Arizona
and
couldn’t
travel
again
until Monday
morning,
per
Arizona State
law. He pulled
into
Window
Rock at about
two in the after-
noon on Mon-
day November
6 and the crane
unloaded the bridge before dark, thank goodness.
The next day the crane operator came back to place the pieces
in the proper alignment readying them for what was to hap-
pen next: the sandblasting, the welder, and the painter. That
was the purpose of going really… that is... we felt the people
buying the bridge didn’t know the reconstruction process,
and felt obliged to help where we could.
Final resting ground
The bridge will cross a “wash” about thirty feet deep and one
hundred feet wide. Ninety-nine other people who live on
that side of the wash in Tse Bonito, New Mexico(pronounced
The mortician told us that the road they were allowed to use
is mostly a meandering trail through people’s yards, past
their clothes lines, barns and chicken houses, and children
playing. Soon people began speeding their way through the
area from Tse Bonito to Window Rock, causing barriers to be
put up to slow the speeders down. The business people felt
the next step would be to bar them from using the roadway
altogether – hence the desire for the bridge.
While we dealt mainly with the mortician, three individuals
paid for the bridge as well as the cost of moving it. The buy-
ers were all business people, owning a car wash, check cash-
ing, Laundromat, mortuary, and flower shop. The balance of
the people in Tse Bonito were free with advice and criticisms
but did not put up a cent to support the bridge, so the buyers
were considering a toll. We learned later that the bridge was
brought up to standards and sold to the state or county to be
maintained to their requirements.
Our customer the mortician
Since we sold the bridge to a mortician, we learned a lot
about the Navajo Nation and Native American burial cus-
toms while there.
The Navajo Nation is the largest Native American land re-
serve in the United States, and a welfare state of amazing
services, including their own mortician.
Pendleton blanket-lined caskets and burials on the “family”
lands.
The Pendleton company actually lines the caskets with their
blankets – the caskets are made of light or dark wood, and are
really beautifully done.
Most of the Indians choose the Chief Joseph blanket to be
wrapped in their traditional manner, with their hands ex-
posed and crossed on their chests to display their wealth of
Silver and Turquoise jewelry bracelets and necklaces. The
Indians sometimes take a ‘best’ horse to shoot and leave at
the gravesite, providing a ghost horse for the deceased to ride
on his way to the Spirit Land.
If a small child is being buried, they buy a large casket to fill
with all new toys for the child to have in his Spirit World.
We were thunderstruck to learn all this...the clothing is slit
that they are buried in, so it can be taken off rapidly, the
shoes are placed on the wrong feet, to confuse the evil spir-
its. We also learned that Delta Airlines is one of the few who
continue to fly the Native American remains back to the res-
ervations. There is by tradition, a four-day time frame to get
the deceased back to their family land for burial.
We will return one day
We learned a lot on this trip and plan to go back for their rib-
bon cutting ceremony in which they are dedicating the bridge
to the President of the Navajo Nation.
Penny Smejkal is a native Vernonian. She had her husband Ken,
aslo a Vernonia-native live, on Timber Road just west of town.