The history behind Yuma’s Ocean-to-Ocean Bridge

Looking up at the Ocean to Ocean Bridge from the banks of the Colorado River in Yuma is quite an awesome sight. Soaring into the air are identical through truss bridges more than 300 feet long. There’s even a sign that lights up at night, proudly beaming “Ocean to Ocean Highway” into the evening sky.

This bridge occupies a special place in Arizona transportation history. For one, it’s the only example of a Pennsylvania truss in the state, which means it has a curved top supporting longer spans. For another, upon its completion, it was also the only highway crossing over the Colorado River for 1,200 miles.

Construction began in October 1914, but the Colorado River had other plans. Twice that winter, bridge falsework washed away. The out-of-state construction company, which was unfamiliar with the Colorado River, settled on a new method: Build the bridge’s spans on barges and float each one down the river and into position. This moved things along and the bridge opened to traffic in May 1915. 

The original bridge carried the Ocean-to-Ocean transcontinental highway, but most vehicle traffic was diverted when Interstate 8 was built decades later. Between 1988 and 2001, the bridge was closed to vehicles; it reopened to vehicular traffic in 2002 after a multi-million-dollar rehabilitation. The bridge was placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1979 and became part of Historic US 80 in 2018.