Lifting Oregon Out of the Mud: Building the Oregon Coast Highway

Oswald West, Oregon's rascally one-term governor, wrote historic legislation in 1913 that set aside Oregon's beaches as Oregon's first coast highway. By 1919, building began in earnest and moved the highway east of the beaches and punched it through four hundred miles of the most rugged and remote terrain on the continent. This breathtaking story concludes in 1936 with an array of five stunning bridges designed by Oregon's premier architect, Conde B. McCullough and resulted in creating one of the most spectacular coastal highways in the world.