Simpson Bridge will see a return to original color

At 4 p.m. on Thursday, Polson Museum staff turned out the lights in glass display cases as the day winded down.

But up the stairs from the front entrance, down a long hallway and behind a door marked “private,” museum director John Larson scaled a few more stairs into the museum’s attic. He searched for a green binder amid the cluttered shelves, and spied it within seconds. Inside were copies of the original building plans for the Simpson Avenue Bridge.

Earlier on Thursday, state Department of Transportation spokesman Doug Adamson said the department plans to spend six to seven months cleaning and painting the bridge this summer. The bridge, he added, will take its original color, mitigating corrosion and bringing back the glory it had nearly 90 years ago.

But what color did officials paint the bridge in 1928? That was the million-dollar question.

Adamson couldn’t say what the color was on Thursday afternoon, so The Daily World went to the Polson Museum to find out. The answer, Larson said, was somewhere in the green binder.

When the project begins later this year, it will require closing the bridge and detouring traffic for six weeks during the summer, Adamson said. Sixty to 70 percent of the work, he added, will be done below the deck, away from traffic. The detour will route traffic to the Riverside Bridge, which will then become a two-way bridge.

“Our plan is to get in, get the work done and get out as soon as possible,” Adamson said. “We recognize the significance of this bridge for the community, families and people getting around in the region, hence the closure for only six weeks.”

The department, Adamson said, will advertise bids for the work later this spring. Officials expect to begin work in the summer and finish by the end of the year.

Though the cost of the work hasn’t been determined, about $4,400 will come from pre-existing funds, the department’s webpage says.

The bridge, which has served as a major thoroughfare for Grays Harbor drivers, was last painted in 1992.

Back at the Polson Museum, Larson flipped through the back pages of the green binder.

There, he found nearly every other detail about the paint, including the number of gallons it took to coat the bridge — 388 — and who made the paint — Rasmussen and Co. in Portland. But hiding a few pages closer to the middle was the million-dollar answer.

Detroit Graphite #501.

The bridge will be painted in steel gray, Adamson later said in an email.

Regardless of which shade of gray the bridge will have by the end of the year, Larson said he’s happy to see that it’s getting some attention.

“The bridge is a focal point of the community landscape,” he said. “I think it’s a good deal all around. We all drive over it every day.”