Engineer's book project spans history of Oregon Coast bridges.

Byline: Lewis Taylor The Register-Guard

Ray Bottenberg didn't plan on becoming an author. The 41-year-old bridge engineer with the Oregon Department of Transportation says the opportunity simply presented itself.

"I discovered that there was this collection of photos that were taken back when the (Oregon) coast bridges were built," Bottenberg recalls. `The pictures were good quality and it was a really, really good subject. My first thought was `Why didn't somebody do a book on this?' After kicking it around a bit, I figured I should.'

The result, "Bridges of the Oregon Coast," is a 127-page pictorial history book that documents the building of six monumental bridges built during the 1930s. Eugene author Joe Blakely wrote the book "Lifting Oregon Out of the Mud," about the construction of the Oregon Coast Highway, but Bottenberg says a history of the major bridges of the Oregon Coast had yet to be written.

The first of the bridges in Bottenberg's book to be completed was the Rogue River Bridge at Gold Beach, which opened in late 1931. Five other bridges - Yaquina Bay, Alsea Bay, Siuslaw River, Umpqua River and Coos Bay - were constructed simultaneously between 1934 and 1936 using Public Works Administration funds during the Great Depression.

A massive undertaking that required 2.1 million man-hours, 54,000 cubic yards of sand, 10,000 cubic yards of gravel, Bottenberg says construction of the five bridges served to do away with an overloaded bay and river ferry system and turn Highway 101 into a seamless thoroughfare that stretched from California to the Washington border. The bridges caused a 72 percent increase in tourism and capped the achievements of famed Oregon engineer Conde McCullough, the designer of hundreds of bridges throughout the state.

"McCullough's big thing was building economical but aesthetically beautiful bridges, Bottenberg says. "It's reflected in what's out there (on the Oregon Coast)."

Bottenberg includes a glossary in his book with terms such as "cartouche" - an ornamental scroll-like figure - and "donkey" - a steam-powered hoisting engine that was commonly used in logging and found to be useful in bridge building. The narrative unfolds chronologically, starting with the construction of the Rogue River Bridge, and the photo-heavy book includes more than 200 black-and-white images shot by an unknown photographer.

"We don't know the name of the photographer, but he worked for the highway department," Bottenberg says. "That photographer was probably driving the wheels off his car."

Bottenberg says editing the sizable collection of more than 800 photographs in the ODOT archives was one of the most challenging aspects of his book. He also searched the state archives and spoke with the relatives of bridge designers and ODOT historians. Bottenberg started the project in January 2005 and signed a deal with Arcadia Publishing earlier this year. The book is part of the South Carolina publishing house's "Images of America" series.

This is Bottenberg's first book. The Sheridan resident grew up in Oregon and graduated from Oregon State University in 1986. He worked as an aircraft structures engineer for Boeing in Seattle and moved back to Oregon to work as an engineer and project manager for a mechanical contractor. In 1999, he joined ODOT, where he currently works as a corrosion engineer helping to maintain and preserve the state's historic bridges. He says he's long had a fascination with bridges.

"They just interest me," he says. "They are really big structures and they serve some very important purposes."

Of the six bridges in his book, Bottenberg says none stands out above the rest.

"I like the one at Newport, a lot," he says. "It's one of a kind. The one at Coos Bay is pretty darn unique. They did some things that you don't see on a lot of bridges."

Bottenberg says the Coos Bay bridge's cantilever truss is uncommonly graceful and the structural arches match the curved approaches to the bridge.

The Newport bridge stands out in his mind because of the repetitive use of arches. The bridge's giant steel arch is mirrored in the smaller steel and concrete arches surrounding it.

Bottenberg has already moved on to his next project, a book about the historic bridges of Portland. Meanwhile, he continues his work at ODOT, helping to preserve the state's bridges.

Today all but one of the bridges chronicled in Bottenberg's book survives - the Alsea Bay Bridge was demolished in 1991. He says the coast bridges will stand for many years to come, provided they are properly maintained. And if his book helps raise the public's awareness of the bridges and prevent the kind of corrosion damage that did the Alsea Bay Bridge in, all the better.

"I don't think any bad can come from elevating people's appreciation of them," he says.

For more information on "Bridges of the Oregon Coast" go to www .arcadiapublishing.com