Series 474: Road Engineer bridge files - photographs, 1904-1988

King County, through its public works agencies, has been historically responsible for the siting, construction, inspection, maintenance, repair and replacement of highway bridges, overcrossings, and undercrossings within its jurisdiction. The county maintains a record of these activities for each bridge.

Part of this record is photographs. This series is composed of photographs separated from Series 103-36, Road Engineer Bridge Files 1901-1994. The photographs document county activities in relation to bridges under the administration of several King County public works agencies (Engineer, Road Engineer, Department of Public Works). Most photographs date from three general time periods: 1910-1920, 1932-1936, and 1950-1988. Photographs from 1932-1936 were most often taken by bridge inspector Thomas P. Blum during summer inspection tours.

Bridges were assigned one or more identifying numbers by the county. The agency record for each bridge includes bridge number; bridge name if applicable; location (name of street or road, nearest city or town, section-township-range coordinates); and name of watercourse, railroad or highway spanned by the structure.

Added information includes type of photographic materials present, date span of photographs, and limited keywords describing image content.

The photograph files are arranged numerically by the bridge number best representing the bulk of the photographs in a given folder. Within each folder, photographs are arranged in approximate chronological order. Negatives are present for many bridge images (particularly for the period 1910-1936) and are filed separately by bridge number.

A partial visual index has been created for this series, consisting of selected photocopied images. Selection criteria were: (1) all photographs prior to 1950; (2) images, 1950-1988, depicting the human and natural environment of bridge sites; and (3) images, 1950-1988, representative of county work activities at bridge sites.

Detailed or repetitive images of routine bridge inspections and of construction and repair work were generally excluded from the visual index but may be present in the folders themselves. The index also includes cross-references to many images of bridges found in Series 104-400, Public Works Project Photograph Files, 1898-1989.

Cottage Lake Creek Bridge (Bridge 52A), 1932	Cottage Lake Creek Bridge (Bridge 52A), 1984	Buckley Bridge over the White River (Bridge 1060B), 1932

South Park Bridge (Bridge 3179), 1932	Bridge on Jas. Mackay Road south of Duvall and north of Novelty (Bridge 968B), 1932	Carr (Cedar Grove) Bridge (Bridge 877A), 1932

Frame bridge on Little Soos Creek near Lake Youngs (Bridge 1137A), 1932	Whitney Bridge over the Green River near Auburn (Bridge 3025), 1932	Small bridge north of Kent near O'Brien School (Bridge 124B), c. 1906