Whoever painted over the graffiti on the Office Covered Bridge – Thank you!

By TIM BAILEY/for The Herald  —  Some of you may have noticed that the west end of our iconic Office Covered Bridge was rather

inexpertly and tastelessly graffitied a couple of weeks ago.  I am often surprised that many who visit the bridge are not aware that our bridge is the longest in the state (yep, it’s 15 feet longer than the Goodpasture Bridge on the McKenzie) and the only one with a separate, covered pedestrian walkway.

This defacement is particularly egregious considering that ODOT (who maintains the bridge using a fund dedicated to the preservation of the State’s covered bridge legacy and has done a great job over the years reroofing and replacing or treating the bridge’s structural elements) just painted the bridge inside and out last fall.  If you haven’t seen it since then, it’s as pretty as it has looked in a while.

I noticed the graffiti about a week ago when I walked over to the bridge from my house in the Hemlock neighborhood of Westfir.  The other day as I was walking over there again, I thought, hey, I have red and white house paint; maybe not the exact shade, but I ought to just take that over and cover up that graffiti, which thankfully was not very extensive.

On my arrival, I was pleased to see it had already been taken care of!  As great as the Oregon

Department of Transportation has been in keeping our bridge ship shape, I doubt such a bureaucracy could move so fast, so I suspect some other community individual, or entity has taken care of this eyesore. Whomever did this great deed, I tip my hat to you!  A big thanks from all us covered bridge appreciators.

As a side note, the covered bridge and associated Westfir Portal rest area is the result of one of the best

and most successful multi-governmental agency collaborations I have ever been aware of.  Twenty or so

years ago the dilapidated and closed covered bridge was part of the abandoned and tax delinquent property previously owned by the Hines Lumber Company.  A group of Westfir citizens formed the Westfir Covered Bridge Society, which lobbied the Lane County to foreclose on the property for the back property taxes owned.  This occurred, and before the County disposed of the vacant mill property, it partitioned off the covered bridge and a parcel on the west end, deeding the parcel to the City of Westfir.

With the cooperation of the City (which maintains the rest area), the Forest Service, (which did the design work for the rest area), and

ODOT, who provided grant money for the rest area construction, the bridge was repaired and restored.  The great park that so many local and even international visitors enjoy was the result of this four-way collaboration.  ODOT’s covered bridge maintenance funds can only be used for bridges with vehicular traffic, hence the need for the rest area on the other side, giving us all the opportunity to drive through the longest and still prettiest covered bridge in Oregon.

If you want to see an example of some really impressive and professional graffiti, take a hike up to

Westfir’s water tank (take the road that goes under the rail road trestle and stay on that road until it ends, some 2,500 feet up the hill).  Six or eight years ago, some really professional graffiti artists took it upon themselves (despite the chain link and barbed wire fence) to decorate the otherwise pretty ugly green cylinder.  The images are actually pretty impressive; go figure why they went to the effort in a place rarely seen by others.

Thanks once again to whomever took it upon themselves to so quickly make our most unique local feature pretty again!