The Colorado Street Bridge is easy to recognize from below. A sequence of tall concrete arches follows a curve across Pasadena’s Arroyo Seco, giving the bridge a different profile depending on where you stand. That curve solved a real engineering problem when the bridge was built in 1913. It also became the feature that makes the crossing so memorable.
The difficult crossing before 1913
Before the high bridge, travelers descended the east slope, crossed the stream at the bottom and climbed toward Eagle Rock. The grade made the trip slow for horse-drawn traffic. A high bridge offered a direct route, but the seasonally wet arroyo bed made it hard to find solid ground for the supports. The ravine shaped the project long before the first arches rose.
Why the Colorado Street Bridge bends
The National Park Service credits engineer John Drake Mercereau with proposing a southward curve that put the supports on firmer ground. The concrete arches rise about 150 feet above the arroyo. The practical geometry also gives the bridge its visual rhythm. Beaux Arts details such as the railings and streetlamps reward a closer look from the roadway, while the height and repeated spans are most apparent from below.
A Route 66 landmark
The bridge later carried historic Route 66, adding a national road story to its local role as a crossing. It entered the National Register of Historic Places in 1981. The contrast is still visible today. Above is a roadway made to speed up travel between communities. Below is the deep ravine that dictated where the structure could stand in the first place.
The place in the poster
The Colorado Street Bridge poster follows the line of the arches above the green ravine, with the streetlamps and distant mountains giving a sense of scale.
See the Colorado Street Bridge poster or browse the Pacific Moderne Travel Posters collection.
Continue with Rose Bowl Stadium History: How Pasadena Built a Bowl in the Arroyo Seco.