Irish Bend Bridge

The Irish Bend Bridge now carries a bike and pedestrian path over Oak Creek on Oregon State University's west-campus research farm in Corvallis, though it began life in 1954 spanning a slough of the Willamette River on Irish Bend Road near Monroe, a relatively late example of the standardized Howe truss highway bridge plans Oregon's Highway Department had developed decades earlier. When Irish Bend Road was realigned in 1975 and culverts replaced the original crossing, the bridge was bypassed and left to decay until it was finally dismantled in 1988 to clear the way for a modern concrete span. It was saved by a grassroots preservation push: the Irish Bend Advisory Committee raised $30,000 in community funds, matched dollar-for-dollar by Benton County, and volunteers including off-duty county employees, OSU students and staff, and Covered Bridge Society of Oregon members physically reassembled the bridge piece by piece at its new OSU site in 1989. That move triggered an unusual National Register journey: relocating a historic structure typically voids its eligibility, so the bridge was delisted in 1989, then painstakingly re-evaluated and relisted in 2013 once its new setting and preserved craftsmanship were judged to retain historic integrity, a rare double-listing story among Oregon's covered bridges. Today the Irish Bend Bridge serves only pedestrians and cyclists as part of a county-maintained path through OSU's research farm.