09/06/2026
Happy 90th Birthday to Newport’s beloved Yaquina Bay Bridge! 🎉
Locals and visitors alike all have a story about “the bridge”. Whether walking across it with someone you love, eating fish tacos watching boats glide between the pillars, or sheltering beneath in an unexpected downpour… this bridge holds memories for so many.
September 6th marks 90 years since the Yaquina Bay Bridge opened in 1936, connecting Newport across Yaquina Bay, completing a continuous motoring route along the coast, and becoming one of the most recognizable landmarks on the Oregon Coast.
Here’s a closer look at the beauty and significance of the bridge, and a few details that might help you appreciate it a little more during its 90th birthday year.
Traveling along the Oregon Coast once meant stopping to cross Yaquina Bay by ferry. The new bridge changed that, creating a continuous highway route and making it easier for people and communities to travel up and down the coast.
Oregon’s renowned bridge engineer, Conde B. McCullough, designed the Yaquina Bay Bridge as part of a series of coastal bridges built to make the new highway possible. But McCullough believed bridges could be more than infrastructure, they could be beautiful, too.
Look closely at the bridge and you’ll see sweeping arches, Art Deco-inspired pylons, stepped concrete forms and decorative elements. The engineering and architecture work together to create the distinctive silhouette we recognize today.
The centerpiece is the great arch. The bridge’s 600-foot steel through-arch stretches across Yaquina Bay, framed by additional steel and concrete arches. It’s an impressive feat of engineering, and one that still defines Newport’s waterfront.
Today, we drive across it without giving it much thought. We pull over to photograph it. We see it from the Bayfront, from the water, or rising above the harbor as we come into town. Knowing its story makes it a little harder to simply drive past.
So this September, take a second to really look at the bridge. 90 years later, it’s still connecting Newport, and still giving us something worth stopping to admire.
Happy birthday, Yaquina Bay Bridge. 💙
