Crooked River Canyon - Peter Skene Ogden State Park

Located right off the highway, just 9 miles north of Redmond, Peter Skene Ogden State Scenic Viewpoint offers some spectacular views of the Crooked River Canyon. Its also a rest area and a state park. There are three bridges crossing the canyon, one is for pedestrians, the historic Crooked River High Bridge which is now closed to vehicles. The other two are the current highway bridge (Rex T. Barber Veterans Memorial Bridge) and the Crooked River Railroad Bridge. A walkway takes people to other viewpoints along the rim of the 500 foot high basalt cliffs, with a few perches that even extend out over the cliff. The park also has restrooms, picnic tables, and on clear days, a view of both Mt. Hood and Mt. Jefferson.

WillhiteWeb.com - Oregon Sights & Attractions

Acquired between 1925 and 1930. The Oregon Trunk Railway gave the original tracts to the state of Oregon. Lands were later acquired from the U. S. Government and the State Land Board. At the suggestion of Robert W. Sawyer of Bend, a strong supporter of Oregon State Parks and former Highway commissioner, the wayside was named for Peter Skene Ogden (1794-1854) explorer, fur trapper, Hudson's Bay Company chief trader and factor. Ogden was the principal explorer of the Snake River country and was among the first to visit the great Salt Lake basin. The city of Ogden, Utah, is named for him. Another historic fact that isn't so pleasant, it was here in 1961 when Jeannace June Freeman killed two young children by throwing them off the cliff into the Gorge below. The case shocked the Oregonian conscience, and she became the only women ever to be sentenced to death in Oregon history.

Throughout the 20th century, traffic increased dramatically on US Highway 97 from a few vehicles per day in the 1920's to over 8,000 by the 1990's! After 70 years the Crooked River High Bridge built in 1926 though still structurally sound, was unable to accommodate the needs of the new millennium. The Oregon Department of Transportation began planning a new crossing of the Crooked River Gorge in the late 1990's. To honor the tradition of bridge crossings over the Crooked River Gorge, it was important for this new bridge to complement the older bridges. David Goodyear, an award-winning bride engineer, was contacted to design the new structure - a concrete deck arch bridge, 535 feet long (almost 100 feet longer than its predecessors), 79 feet wide, and 295 feet high. The new Crooked River Bridge is the first major cast-in-place segmental concrete arch bridge in the United States. Construction began in Nov. 1997, and the bridge opened to public on September 16, 2000.

The Oregon Trunk Railroad Bridge, constructed in 1911, was the first structure to cross this spectacular gorge. Prior to construction, the only crossing of the Crooked River in this region was located about a mile upstream, where the canyon's sheer basalt walls began tapering gradually into the surrounding landscape. In the early 1900s, railroad tycoons James J. Hill of the Spokane, Portland & Seattle Railway and Edward Harriman of the Union Pacific began a fierce battle for the rights to open central Oregon to rail traffic. This battle, one of the greatest in railroad history, played out in the courts, whee the SP&S triumphed. In the field, however, where night raids, dynamite, gunfire, and fistfights were common, neither railroad triumphed. The Oregon Trunk Railway, a subsidiary of the SP&S, ran from Celilo Falls on the Columbia River to Bend - James Hill was on hand in Bend on Oct. 5, 1911 to drive a "Golden Spike" celebrating the line's official opening.