April 11, 1930: The county court at its April session placed the limit on which speeders can cross the Longview bridge at 20 miles per hour. This applies to the Oregon side of the bridge.
March 20, 1931: Finding an abandoned Ford roadster, lights still
burning, Tuesday morning [March 17, 1931] when the first bus came
over the bridge on the Longview Rainier run was linked with a
suicide note left in his Portland home by Wilfrid Hill, and after
a close check had been made authorities came to the conclusion that
Hill had driven down here, left his car on the bridge and leaped
from the structure to his death in the water below. ..No attempt
was made to drag for the body, as it is believed that if Hill
jumped into the river he fell in midstream, where the current is so
swift that the body would have been borne down the river hours
before the deed was discovered.
--
"It cost a dollar for a passenger vehicle to cross the bridge, ten cents just to walk across. Two dollars a day out of your paycheck if you worked across the river. Some guys rode over on a ferry -- some would car pool - trying to beat the bridge toll."
-- Ed Rea
"For a long time I thought our middle name was Weyerhaueser. My Grandpa worked there as did my uncles and my father. They rode across the river on a ferry. [Someone] -- used a steel bottomed boat as a ferry and crossed the river from a landing down below the bridge at Dibblee's point. They crossed the river in all kinds of weather. They could run a compass course in the fog and hit the dock on the other side every time.
-- Dick Jenkins
"Jeff Barton ran the ferry across to Weyerhauser from Dibblee's Point. He made every trip using the compass so he could cross the river in any kind of weather. 'Mac' McCollom ran the ferry over to Long Bell and to the Fibre for many years. That was the 'Elsinore' "
-- Ed Rea
"A fellow by the name of LaFitte modified his pickup by putting bench seats down each side of the box. He had a canopy over the box for a shelter. Eight guys could ride in the back and two more in the front. We each gave him a pedestrian ticket (ten cents) to pay the bridge toll."
-- Lex Rea
"Art Anderson put a canopy on his pickup and a bunch of us rode across the river with him. We would meet down by where the tobacco shop is now -- park there -- and ride across the river with Art."
-- Ed Rea
"During the war the army stationed soldiers by the bridge to protect it from sabotage. They had a building on the Oregon side and would ride across with every car, rain or shine. If there wasn't room inside the car they would hang on outside and ride the running board. "
-- Dick Jenkins
"They held war games down in West Rainier. They had plywood tanks and gun emplacements set up. I used to go down and watch."
-- Dick Jenkins
"They wouldn't allow any explosives on the bridge -- they even confiscated some twenty-two shells I had in the car."
-- Ed Rea
"At night they enforced a blackout. You weren't supposed to use any lights on your car. One time Jess Perkins turned his lights on to orient himself - he couldn't see to drive - and a soldier boy stepped up and broke out the headlights with the butt of his gun. All the soldier said was: 'Now I guess you'll drive with your lights out.' "
-- Ed Rea
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