McCullough Memorial Bridge

Originally named the Coos Bay Bridge when it was completed in 1936, the McCullough Bridge was subsequently renamed in 1947 to honor Conde McCullough, who had died the year before. McCullough was a civil engineer who designed many of the bridges along Highway 101, which runs along the Oregon Coast. The bridge acts as an entrance of sorts to the North Bend/Coos Bay area, and, because of its attention to ‘form and detail’, is listed in the National Register of Historic Places.

I had been driving around looking for a good vantage point from which to photograph the bridge and someone I knew gave me a tip about a field near the bridge which might serve as a good spot to shoot from. I went to the recommended location and the view wasn’t bad, but it still wasn’t really what I was looking for. However, from the field I could see that there was a beach below, but there was about a ten foot steep drop from the field down to the beach and the steep slope was covered with all sorts of overgrowth (which I also did notice had thorns - if you’re a Pittsburgher you call them ‘jagger bushes’, or to hear it and get a good laugh go here). Yeah, not getting down that way.

As I was leaving the field, I saw a truck pulled over outside a construction site with a couple of people talking to the driver inside with the window open. So I ambled up and asked them if they knew a way to get down to the beach. They weren’t 100% sure, but they told me how and where they thought I could get down there. But it came with a warning. “Be really careful down there when the tide comes in,” they said, “a year or two ago someone got stuck down there and drowned when the tide rose and they had no way out.” Hmm, makes you think twice for sure.

But, having been in Oregon a number of times already, I had slowly learned about the importance of the tides and the dangers of turning your back to the ocean, so I sorta knew what I was doing. The first thing was to check my trusty TideTrac phone app to see where the tide stood and how and when it would be rising. It looked like I had a good hour or two before it would really be getting high, so I decided I would give getting down to the beach a go.

I followed their directions and was able to reach the beach after hopping in my car and taking a two or three minute drive. The beach felt a bit odd since it was completely deserted and because it was in back of several construction companies (and, I suppose, because people don’t really come to the beach to hang out under a bridge). In addition, I passed a makeshift tent or two. So I decided on two things. The first was that I was going to locate an exit to climb to higher ground just in case the tide rose faster than I expected and that I was getting out of there before dark.

The sun was low in the sky and it imparted a nice glow to the bridge, though I had to take a bit of a hike to get to the side of the bridge that the setting sun was illuminating. See that ‘sand’ on the beach? Luckily I decided to put my boots on before I got down there, because with the tide slowly coming in I sunk a couple inches down in what felt more like a mud puddle than beach sand.

To me, the appearance of the bridge in the setting sunlight reminded me of a ‘wish you were here' vintage postcard, and so that was the effect I was going for in post-processing.

Obviously, I did make it out in plenty of time, before the tide rose and before it became dark. Further down the beach were some interesting looking areas, so it is a place that I might well return to.

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