Salt Creek Tunnel – Oakridge OR

State:
OR

Site Type:
Roads, Bridges, and Tunnels, Infrastructure and Utilities

New Deal Agencies:
Bureau of Public Roads (BPR), Conservation and Public Lands, Public Works Funding, Work Relief Programs, National Park Service (NPS), Works Progress Administration (WPA)

Started:
1937

Completed:
1940

Contractor:
Orino-Birkemeier & Saremal

Quality of Information:
Very Good

Marked:
No

Site Survival:
Extant

Description

Originally named the Willamette Highway Tunnel, the 905 feet-long Salt Creek Tunnel completed the Oregon Forest Highway Project that ran through remote areas of the Willamette National Forest to link US Highway 99 near Eugene with US 97 on the east side of the Cascades. The Bureau of Public Roads (BPR) designed the tunnel and its masonry rock portals and contracted with the Portland firm Orino-Birkemeier & Saremai to construct the project in December 1937.

The length of the tunnel along with the remote location and rugged terrain introduced challenges with its construction. Oregon Department of Transportation historian Robert Hadlow notes that contemporary concerns about conditions for the thirty member construction crew, related to ventilation and fire protection, required that the State Industrial Accident Commission write a new code for worker safety. The tunnel bore was completed in 1939 and the project’s viaducts and masonry were completed in 1940,

Although designed by BPR staff, National Park Service landscape architects had final approval of the detailed plans for the Rustic-Style tunnel portals, viaducts, and guardrails. While documentation is scarce, it is almost certain that Works Progress Administration masons trained by Ralph Curcio completed the stone work for the portals and adjacent guardrails. The cut rock for the portals came from the Rocky Butte Quarry. While the only one outside the Portland area, the Salt Creek Tunnel joins the Rocky Butte Tunnel, NW Cornell Road Tunnels, the West Burnside Tunnel, the Sunset Tunnel and the Toothrock Tunnel as one of the best examples of 1930s/1940s roadway tunnels in the United States with National Park Service Rustic-Style masonry portals.

Source notes

Hadlow, Robert (2002) "Salt Creek Tunnel No. 2539." Oregon Inventory of Historic Properties: Section 106 Documentation Form. Oregon Department of Transportation.

Site originally submitted by Judith T Kenny on May 15, 2020.

Location Info


MP 56.10 Willamette Hwy 18 (OR 58)
Oregon Lane County

Coordinates: 43.600706, -122.036475

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