{"id":939600,"date":"2026-10-20T04:06:09","date_gmt":"2026-10-20T04:06:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/939600\/"},"modified":"2026-10-20T04:06:09","modified_gmt":"2026-10-20T04:06:09","slug":"archival-photos-show-construction-of-pattullo-bridge","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/939600\/","title":{"rendered":"Archival photos show construction of Pattullo Bridge"},"content":{"rendered":"

The bridge has been removed after nearly 90 years over the Fraser River.<\/p>\n

This month saw the removal of the central span of the Pattullo Bridge.<\/p>\n

After nearly 90 years in\u00a0operation, the bridge was closed earlier this year to traffic. Last weekend saw the removal of the well-known orange arch that made up the central span of the bridge.<\/p>\n

Some people caught the deconstruction<\/a> and removal<\/a> of the arch on video<\/a>.<\/p>\n

In the 1930s, cameras weren’t as common, but some folks did capture the construction of the bridge.<\/p>\n

These photos show the bridge in its earliest days (when it was white), as cranes worked to move materials into place over the Fraser River.<\/p>\n

There’s also video clips of the bridge being built in a video on the City of Vancouver archive\u00a0website<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The crossing was a big deal at the time. According to newspapers from the time, New Westminster was the third-largest port in Canada, and the bridge was an important piece of infrastructure for moving goods around the Lower Mainland.<\/p>\n

The Pattullo Bridge had an arch rival<\/p>\n

An old newspaper ad notes the bridge featured the latest in street light technology with sodium vapour lights.<\/p>\n

At the same time, the bridge was seen as a rival of sorts to the Lions Gate Bridge, which was under construction at the same time. When Lions Gate was finished, they were the two largest bridges in Western Canada.<\/p>\n

To help pay for the bridge, there was a toll, though everyone got to cross the bridge on the first day it was open for free.<\/p>\n

Odd by today’s standards, the Pattullo Bridge was named for the sitting premier. Premier Thomas “Duff” Pattullo was in power from 1933 to 1941, and was on hand for the opening of the bridge. That would be akin to Premier David Eby opening up the replacement bridge, named Eby Bridge instead of\u00a0stal\u0315\u0259w\u0313as\u0259m Bridge.<\/p>\n

The Pattullo Bridge itself was a replacement for an older bridge across the Fraser River from New Westminster to Surrey, which itself was notable, having been built between 1902 and 1904. It was “wide enough for two wagonloads of hay,” according to an old Daily Province article.<\/p>\n

That bridge had replaced a ferry which ran between the two communities from 1884 until the bridge opened. The original feery was the K de K.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The bridge has been removed after nearly 90 years over the Fraser River. This month saw the removal…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":939601,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[194298],"tags":[49,48,55],"class_list":["post-939600","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-vancouver","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-vancouver"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/939600","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=939600"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/939600\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/939601"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=939600"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=939600"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=939600"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}