The first
bridge across the Skykomish River at Monroe consisted of an
150-foot
span across the main channel coupled with a 75-foot span
across the slough to the south with a 300-foot trestle
connecting the two. The bridge was built of wood with steel rods
to strengthen the girders. The piers were rectangles of heavy
sawed timbers filled with rock.
The contract for the project was awarded in 1893 and was
superintended by engineer James Stirton, who faced two serious
setbacks. First, the north pier timbers gave way underwater and the
pier had to be completely rebuilt. Second and much more serious,
the Financial Panic of 1893 stopped the project cold when the
construction company went bankrupt. Work was not resumed until the
following year when it was finally completed. People came from
miles around to celebrate the completion of the bridge. Carpenter
Thomas Tucker laid a fine lumber floor over the planks of the main
span and waxed it for dancing. Evergreen branches were nailed to
the bridge for decoration, lanterns hung, and local fiddlers
played. The celebration lasted several days with boxing and
wrestling matches, orations, and beer by the barrel.
The bridge was rebuilt
in 1905 (picured above) with a second,
smaller truss. In 1915 a steel
girder bridge with a concrete floor was built slightly
downstream from the old bridge and then connected to the
small bridge that went over the slough to the south. The 1915
bridge was in use until 1957 when it was replaced by the the bridge
you see today, which was again constructed slightly downstream from
the old one. If you walk down hill from the cache you can still see
one of the bridge pylons from that 1915 bridge. For more
information, read Blanche Shannahan's Saga of the
Bridges.
Another in series of caches that focus on Monroe-area
history. You are looking for a bison capsule at the south end
of
Monroe's Lewis Street Park, so you'll need to bring your own
pen/pencil. Look in the narrow cleft of a split tree just on the
other side of the fence. No need to climb down the bank; there's a
clear, level trail to the cache that you can access at the south
end of the fence, which runs along the outer side of the fence. You
will want to do this one in daylight and keep any young kids behind
the fence, hence the higher terrain rating for what is otherwise
really a cache 'n dash. "Cache seekers assume all risks involved in
seeking a cache."
What you would have seen looking south from the cache site
one-hundred years ago.