Fight over little-known Salmon River bridge highlights CCC’s role in Depression-era Idaho

If the scheme had worked 80 years ago, Central Idaho would now be dissected by a highway linking eastern Idaho to the western part of the state.

The uncompleted highway — dubbed “The Road to Nowhere” by a couple researchers — was the brainchild of Idaho business people, landowners, miners, politicians and developers who wanted to save time and money moving goods and services from one side of the state to the other.

It was the mission of hundreds of young men who labored in the Civilian Conservation Corps camps in Idaho from 1933 to 1941 to build the route.

“The road was to go from Riggins to Salmon all along the Salmon River,” said Ivar Nelson, of Moscow. “It was promoted by boosters in Salmon and Lewiston to connect eastern Idaho more directly to Lewiston. So the idea was to have this road down the river’s edge to bring goods and stuff both ways along that corridor. And they had congressional support … at that time for this.”

The crowning achievement of the corps’ effort on the western side was the 248-foot-long Manning Crevice Bridge — a one-lane structure about 14 miles upstream from Riggins. Today the bridge is at the heart of a controversy between Idaho County and the Federal Highway Administration, which plans this fall to tear down the old bridge and replace it with a new $7.5 million concrete span.

The task of building the proposed Salmon River highway was monumental in scope for the corps, which was made up of destitute young men from around the country.

Camps were set up near Riggins and North Fork, in the eastern part of the state, where the men lodged while digging, blasting and carving their way through the Idaho wilderness toward a meeting point.

On the western side, three bridges were built across the river, the farthest and now the most famous was the Manning Crevice Bridge.

The cable suspension bridge was named after John C. Manning, who was one of the corps’ workers who drowned in the river during construction. The structure was built with creosote-coated timbers and concrete abutments. According to U.S. Forest Service documents, bridge expenditures in 1935 were $18,065.

SADDLED WITH MAINTENANCE COSTS

Idaho County Road Supervisor Gene Meinen said the bridge has been deemed unsafe and he supports the notion that it be replaced by a more secure connection.

The problem is that once the bridge is built — estimated to be completed by November 2016 — Idaho County must assume ownership and maintenance responsibilities from the Forest Service.

The Manning Crevice Bridge “was a major accomplishment for the time and the engineering they had back then,” Meinen said.

“But this was a Forest Service bridge and always had been but the Forest Service is trying to unload all their road and bridge inventory on the local government.”

Idaho County has protested, saying it has neither the finances nor the manpower to take over and maintain the bridge. But the federal government’s response, Meinen said, was: “If you’re not going to accept ownership we’re going to cancel this project and tell the people of Riggins it’s the county’s fault and that’s why their economy’s getting hurt.”

Idaho County Commission Chairman Jim Chmelik, a strong proponent of the federal government handing over ownership of public lands to local governments, said he opposes having the Manning Crevice Bridge dumped in the county’s lap.

“My issue with the bridge is the maintenance factors it’s going to involve for us — not me, but 30 years from now,” Chmelik said.

If the bridge was going to be used for trucking to haul natural resources to generate some income for the county, he said, it would be a different story.

But that’s not the case. The bridge will be used mainly by recreationists and some landowners who have ranches in the backcountry.

Greg Gifford of the Federal Highway Administration office in Vancouver, Wash., said one of the requirements of the Federal Lands Access program, through which the funding for the bridge will come, is that a local agency must assume maintenance or ownership of the new construction. The local agency also must match a portion of the total cost. In Idaho County’s case, that came to about $250,000. The county has applied for a grant to pay a portion of that match.

MULTIPLE CHALLENGES

Although the Salmon River highway began in an atmosphere of optimism, it soon ran into a number of roadblocks that eventually scuttled the plan.

Resistance to building a highway through Idaho’s pristine backcountry began to mount, Nelson said, even though environmentalists had not had much clout until then.

“It represents so many of the debates today,” he said. “There was a struggle nationally between wilderness advocates like Bob Marshall and … Aldo Leopold, who wanted to preserve wilderness untouched.

“On the other hand you had people who wanted to develop. And so that was the conflict.”

Not only were the country’s policymakers divided, but the Forest Service’s regional offices in Ogden, Utah, and Missoula, Mont., also disagreed about what to do.

Meanwhile, the boys of the CCC were working their way upstream when they began to run into sheer rock cliffs.

Work slowed as crews had to blast more rock and barge materials and equipment to make headway.

The country was in the midst of a buildup for World War II. When the U.S. entered the war in 1941, Congress disbanded the CCC and moved many of the workers into military service.

“The road stopped and that’s where it is today because after the war there was no support,” Nelson said. “The financial support to put it through did not exist.”

To Nelson, the Manning Crevice Bridge is a testament to the impact of the CCC throughout Idaho and he questions the validity of tearing it down to build an expensive new bridge.

The road upriver from the bridge, he points out, goes just five more miles before ending at Vinegar Creek. The claim that the old bridge poses a liability risk is specious.

“That’s a liability that exists in historical structures all over the world,” Nelson said.

Gifford said it’s being funded because of the millions of acres of Forest Service land accessible through the end of the road.

“It’s a very difficult location and the folks upstream ... do depend on this bridge,” Gifford said. “The existing bridge is going to fall. It’s just a matter of time.”

“So it does sound like a lot of money for a bridge that serves relatively few people. But it really is an important link into the forest for recreation, logging, for all the things that happen.”

Hart says the Salmon River highway project is one of the CCC’s few road and bridge building endeavors in Idaho that did not turn out as expected.

“It was an impractical, crazy idea to start with,” she said. “Most of the stuff that was done (by the CCC) was done under very close supervision by Forest Service personnel. But this was definitely a case of boosterism and pushing things beyond what was even logical.

“So I think that the Salmon River road, the ‘Road to Nowhere’, the bridge that went too far, is the exception that otherwise proved the rule.”

This story was originally published July 29, 2015 at 12:00 AM.