While Utah is known for its spectacular natural bridges, our thousands of man-made bridges are not as noteworthy. No Golden Gate Bridge, no Brooklyn Bridge, and no London Bridge. Most Utah bridges do their jobs without much show, carrying traffic over roads, rivers, creeks, washes, and canyons, without travelers even being aware of what they’ve crossed over. Nevertheless, over the years Utah has seen a few bridges that have geometries to make them both functional and visually striking. Since these bridges have been part of the state’s transportation infrastructure, they’re often documented in the records of the Department of Transportation and those of its predecessor, the State Road Commission.

One of the most elegant bridges in Utah history spanned Parley’s Canyon, carrying Wasatch Boulevard along its old route on the east Salt Lake Valley bench to connect with Highway 40 going up to Park City. The Highway Commission completed the 202-foot-long bridge in steel-reinforced concrete in 1938 at a cost of $54,000. The structure consisted of a row of smaller arches supporting the roadway and transferring the weight down to a single primary parabolic concrete arch underneath, carrying the weight of the road down to the ground. It was this structural arrangement that gave the bridge its beauty.

The bridge became known as Stillman Bridge, named for Charles Stillman, who first proposed erecting a bridge across the canyon when he was a Salt Lake County Commissioner from 1918-1922.¹

Stillman Bridge soon became an iconic local landmark and showed up on postcards and in travelers’ photo albums, but its life lasted only about 26 years. As early as 1959 plans were announced to build a large interchange at the mouth of Parley’s Canyon as part of the new Interstate 80. The new interchange would replace Stillman Bridge.²

On 22 November 1963 a demolition crew made an attempt to bring down the bridge with explosives, but only succeeded in damaging the south end.³ A couple of weeks later a young Salt Lake Tribune columnist, Hal Schindler, complimented the original contractors on their quality work, after a third round of explosives failed to complete the job.⁴ While the press spoke of “failed attempts,” it may have been intentional to take the bridge down in stages. In any case, destroying the bridge was a difficult task, and in the end it took four explosions to demolish the entire bridge.

A photographer documented the demolition process for the Road Commission files. Decades later those same photographs provide modern viewers with visual evidence of the structure, the details, and the setting of the lost landmark.

Ten months after the demolition, a letter to the editor of the Deseret News lamented the loss of the bridge, calling it “the most beautifully balanced and graceful structure of its kind in the West.”⁵ Today the abandoned asphalt of Wasatch Boulevard still winds along the south side of the canyon, ending abruptly where the bridge once stood. Few people alive today have experienced the “balance and grace” of Stillman Bridge first-hand. Fortunately, sources in the archives retain some memory of this once elegant structure.

FOOTNOTES

1. Travels Told At Rotary Luncheon by S. C. Sorenson, Sugar House Bulletin, April 15, 1938, p. 4. ↩︎
2. Parley’s Interchange Scheduled for ‘63, Deseret News, July 22, 1959, p.1. ↩︎
3. Old Bridge Rebuffs Demolition Efforts, Salt Lake Tribune, November 23, 1963, p. 25. ↩︎
4. Nothing Serious, Salt Lake Tribune, December 10, 1963, p. 19. ↩︎
5. Letters to the Editor, Deseret News, September 14, 1964, p. 14. ↩︎