The Dent Bridge is a

suspension bridge A suspension bridge is a type of bridge in which the deck (bridge), deck is hung below suspension wire rope, cables on vertical suspenders. The first modern examples of this type of bridge were built in the early 1800s. Simple suspension bridg ...

in the

northwest The points of the compass are a set of horizontal, radially arrayed compass directions (or azimuths) used in navigation and cartography. A '' compass rose'' is primarily composed of four cardinal directions—north, east, south, and west— ...

United States The United States of America (USA), also known as the United States (U.S.) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It is a federal republic of 50 U.S. state, states and a federal capital district, Washington, D.C. The 48 ...

, located in north central

Idaho Idaho ( ) is a landlocked U.S. state, state in the Pacific Northwest and Mountain states, Mountain West subregions of the Western United States. It borders Montana and Wyoming to the east, Nevada and Utah to the south, and Washington (state), ...

in Clearwater County, north of Orofino. It is up the North Fork of the Clearwater River, now Dworshak Reservoir. Completed in 1971 at a cost of $7,848,950, it has a main span of , and an overall length of .

History

Built in conjunction with the

Dworshak Dam Dworshak Dam is a concrete gravity dam in the western United States, on the North Fork of the Clearwater River in north central Idaho. In Clearwater County, the dam is located approximately northwest of Orofino and impounds the Dwors ...

by the

U.S. Army Corps of Engineers The United States Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) is the military engineering branch of the United States Army. A direct reporting unit (DRU), it has three primary mission areas: Engineer Regiment, military construction, and civil wor ...

during the early 1970s, this bridge provides local access over the flooded river, now Dworshak Reservoir. It replaced a smaller bridge which crossed the river prior to the flooding by the reservoir. Without the bridge, vehicle access from Ahsahka to the small community of Elk River would be blocked off. The Corps of Engineers carefully weighed the possibilities for getting traffic to Elk River from the Orofino side of the Clearwater River. Building a new road all the way around the long

reservoir A reservoir (; ) is an enlarged lake behind a dam, usually built to water storage, store fresh water, often doubling for hydroelectric power generation. Reservoirs are created by controlling a watercourse that drains an existing body of wa ...

would not only be expensive, cutting into miles and miles of extremely rocky terrain, but would also be a painful inconvenience for travelers. The only reasonable answer was a bridge somewhere in the middle of the future reservoir. The exact location was based on the

topography Topography is the study of the forms and features of land surfaces. The topography of an area may refer to the landforms and features themselves, or a description or depiction in maps. Topography is a field of geoscience and planetary sci ...

most suitable for road access as well as for the bridge construction itself. The bridge takes its name from Charles and Katherine Dent, who in 1895 owned land on the western side of where the bridge now stands. The settlement of Dent was razed prior to being flooded by the reservoir.

References

External links

Dent Bridge
– Highest Bridges
Dent Bridge
– Bridgehunter
Dent Bridge
– Bridgemeister {{Coord, 46, 36, 9, N, 116, 10, 42, W, type:landmark, display=title Bridges completed in 1971 Suspension bridges in the United States Buildings and structures in Clearwater County, Idaho Transportation in Clearwater County, Idaho Road bridges in Idaho Towers in Idaho