DUANE
Duane's take
Here's my telling of what the official marker has to say about Rainbow Bridge, out there over the Neches River in Jefferson County. Now, before there was a Rainbow Bridge, there was a problem. And the problem was this: the petrochemical industry in Jefferson and Orange counties was growing fast — real fast — in the early twentieth century.
People were pouring into the area, and all those people needed to get somewhere. Transportation needs were escalating, and the Neches River just sat there, wide and inconvenient as ever. So in the 1920s, somebody said enough is enough, and plans began for a bridge.
Simple idea. Not so simple execution. What followed was seven years of campaigning.
Seven years of wrangling, of a depressed economy pressing down on every ambition, of business leaders who could not agree with each other long enough to break ground on anything. The ones who kept the dream alive were the Port Arthur News and American Legion Post No. 7. They pushed, and they kept pushing.
Then came 1934, and Governor Miriam A. Ferguson signed a special law — a special law — to make it possible to use county bond funds and Federal Public Works Administration money to pay for a state highway bridge. That unlocked the door.
The project engineer, G. G. Wickline, got to work, and he did not think small.
He used innovative techniques to design a bridge that would cross seven thousand, seven hundred and forty-two feet of marshy terrain and river bottom. Just imagine that — nearly a mile and a half of soggy ground and river, and Wickline said, yes, we'll bridge that. But here's the part that really gets you.
The central span — six hundred and eighty feet across — was designed to clear a Navy ship carrying a moored dirigible. A dirigible. So the roadbed had to sit one hundred and seventy-six feet above tidal waters.
At the time, that made it the highest elevated roadbed over tidal waters in the world. The final bill came to two million, seven hundred and fifty thousand dollars. On September 8, 1938, they dedicated it.
Huge crowds turned out. It was, by all accounts, a major local event — and you can imagine why. Seven years of arguing, a special act of the governor, an engineer who designed for Navy ships and airships both, and two and three-quarter million dollars later, there it stood.
For nearly two decades it didn't even have the name you know it by. That came in 1957, when the North Port Arthur Lions Club sponsored a naming contest — and the winner was Rainbow Bridge. Some names just fit a thing so well you can't imagine it being called anything else.
That's the bridge over the Neches River. That's Rainbow Bridge.
What the marker says
The rapid growth of the petrochemical industry in Jefferson and Orange counties in the early 20th century led to increased population in this area. In order to serve escalating transportation needs, plans began in the 1920s for the construction of a bridge to span the Neches River. Due to the depressed economy and differences of opinion among business leaders, the campaign to build the bridge (led by the Port Arthur "News" and American Legion Post No. 7) lasted for seven years. In 1934 Gov. Miriam A. Ferguson signed a special law to enable county bond and Federal Public Works Administration funds to pay for state highway bridge construction. The project engineer, G. G. Wickline, used innovative techniques to design a bridge that would cross 7,742 feet of marshy terrain and river bottom. The bridge's 680-foot central span, designed to clear a Navy ship carrying a moored dirigible, was, at 176 feet, the world's highest elevated roadbed over tidal waters. The final cost of the bridge was $2,750,000. Its dedication on September 8, 1938, drew huge crowds and was a major local event. In a 1957 contest sponsored by the North Port Arthur Lions Club, it was named "Rainbow Bridge." (1990)