This Hickory Shirt/Heritage the theme is bridges. Here on the West End we are so reliant on these structures and probably don’t pay much attention to them as we cross them multiple times anytime we leave our community.

We have it much better than the early pioneers who sometimes had to navigate a slippery log across a river or the frightening swinging foot bridge. The West End once had many swinging bridges, mostly foot bridges, where one was always sure it was going to collapse when crossing or some joker liked to get it “swinging”.

The last swinging bridge on the peninsula was removed in August 1988. The bridge had served the Maxfield family and was built in 1932. Anyone that ever drove over it recalls the sound..as it moaned and creaked under the wheels of the vehicle.

The Calawah Bridge that serves the North end of Forks was not always in its current location. Early residents entered town up-river about 150 feet and the “highway” came through where Olympic Suites is today and then on to Sol Duc Way. I am not sure what year the route got changed, and why? Maybe someone knows?

And anyone that lived in the West End, December 14, 1979, remembers the morning the Bogachiel Bridge collapsed. Built in 1925 the bridge had endured heavy rains the preceding week and around 5:30 a.m. it went down.

One person was killed and several others hospitalized. Russell Barker was on sanding patrol for the road department that morning and lost his life doing his job. The bridge that replaced the 1925 version was later named in honor of Barker.

So, if you are driving anywhere today…thank a bridge.