A high steel bridge with a wooden deck built over the Jefferson-street canyon in 1904 by the first Portland Railway Company to carry its new Portland Heights streetcar line. The bridge was simple and utilitarian, but was only just wider than the double streetcar tracks laid across it. Vehicular traffic could also use the bridge, but there was nowhere to pass. A single narrow planked sidewalk ran along the eastern side of the bridge—within a few years of the bridge’s opening, it became known as “suicide bridge,” long before its replacement, the Vista Bridge, earned the same title.

In 1922, the city and the Portland Railway, Light & Power Company came to an agreement where the city would take over ownership (and subsequent replacement) of the bridge if the city would forgive $32,000 in street improvement liens on the traction company that were under litigation. Design and financing of the new Vista bridge took three years to finalize – the city and the traction company were to pay a quarter of the cost each, with the balance being paid by residents in an assessment district near the bridge.

Construction of the new span began in January 1926 and was complete by the end of October. The old bridge was used to provide uninterrupted streetcar service while the new bridge was being built. When the deck of the new bridge was ready in September 1926, a temporary streetcar track was laid across it and the old structure was demolished.

The city purchased the steel from the old bridge from the contractors, Parker & Banfield, and used it to build the Burlingame viaduct across Stephens Creek in south Portland, which opened in November 1928 and remained in use until 1993 when it was replaced by the current Terwilliger Boulevard viaduct over I-5.

Lines Served

• Council Crest (1906–1950)
• Portland Heights (1904–???)

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