Conde Balcom McCullough

Among the world’s most spectacular cliff-lined ocean byways is the Oregon Coast Highway (U.S. 101). Built in the early to mid-1930s, during the seemingly impossible tight-money years of the Great Depression, the impressive Oregon roadway was made possible by the daring and creativity of one of America’s greatest bridge engineers, Conde Balcom McCullough (Fig. 1), a West Coast transplant from the rolling farmlands of the American Midwest.

To successfully complete the Oregon project in record time, striking, cutting-edge concrete arch bridges were built over roaring rivers, deep bays, and inlets. At a Rotary Club meeting in 1936, after the highway’s main bridge structures were put into use, McCullough characterized U.S. Highway 101 as “the finest major route in the world.” He called its bridges “jeweled clasps in a wonderful string of matched pearls” (Husing 2008).

Highlighting McCullough’s legacy are the hundreds of gracefully arched spans that established Oregon’s “blue highways” as being one of the nation’s most recognized highway systems of all time. Most impressive of McCullough’s bridges is the mile-long span at Coos Bay (Figs. 2 and 3), a stunning concrete and steel structure of rhythmic beauty elegantly crossing a wide expanse of fierce waters. Guidebook author Donald C. Jackson noted,

McCullough clearly possessed a flair for visually pleasing engineering design, but he also appreciated the economic and political realities inherent in building 20th century transportation systems. He earned a law degree in order to be familiar with the legal implications of building and maintaining Oregon’s highway system. (Jackson 1988)

To mark its 125th anniversary in 1999, Engineering News-Record (ENR) listed 125 people who “helped shape this nation and the world” by “developing new analytical tools, equipment, engineering or architectural designs.” The 10 selected bridge engineers “dared to span great lengths with the most elegant, constructible and economical solutions possible.” Along with McCullough on the ENR list of outstanding bridge engineers were internationally renowned icons like Othmar Ammann, James Eads, Robert Maillart, and David Steinman (ENR 1999). Today, a dozen of McCullough’s bridges are on the National Register of Historic Places, including crossings at Big Creek, Cape Creek, Coos Bay, Depoe Bay, Rocky Creek, Rogue River (Fig. 4), Siuslaw River, Ten Mile Creek, Umpqua River, Willamette River, Wilson River (Fig. 5), and Yaquina Bay (Fig. 6).

Conde was born on May 30, 1887, in Dakota Territory near present-day Redfield, South Dakota, the only child of John and Lenna (Balcom) McCullough. His 37-year-old father, who was at various times a doctor, minister, and schoolteacher, was born in Ohio. Conde’s mother, 8 years younger than her husband, was born in Michigan.

Conde’s paternal great-grandparents William and Mary McCullough and their 7-year-old son Boyd (Conde’s grandfather) had immigrated to Pennsylvania from Ireland in 1832. After graduating from Duquesne College in Pittsburgh in 1848, Boyd enrolled in a Cincinnati, Ohio, seminary and was subsequently ordained in the Reformed Presbyterian Church. In 1855, Boyd and his wife Julia Ann and their 3-year-old son John (Conde’s father) left Ohio for a pastorship in Detroit, Michigan. John eventually studied medicine at the University of Michigan, where he met Lenna. A few years after the Civil War (1861–1865) ended and after they were married, the young couple moved to Dakota Territory, where Conde’s father set up a medical practice.

In 1891, the McCullough family relocated from South Dakota to Fort Dodge, Iowa, where John studied to become a missionary for the Disciple of Christ Church. Four years old at the time of the move, Conde was placed in local schools 2 years later. In due course he received all his formal precollege education in the Iowa state school system.

Thirteen years after arriving in Fort Dodge, Conde’s father fell and severely injured his spine, leaving him unable to work. He was dead within a year. To the 17-year-old Conde fell the responsibility of supporting himself and his mother while saving money to attend college, about which both of his parents were adamant. Neither was precise about what career he should pursue. In 1905, while working on a section gang maintaining portions of the Illinois Central’s railroad tracks, the 17-year-old, 135-lb, 5-ft-6-in.-tall Conde decided he would study civil engineering.

In 1906, he enrolled at Iowa State College (now Iowa State University [ISU]) at Ames, Iowa, 50 miles southeast, as the crow flies, from Fort Dodge. At the time, ISU’s engineering department was led by the well-respected and progressive Anson Marston (1864–1949). The 42-year-old dean of engineering regularly encouraged those around him to reach their maximum potential and “instilled high professional and ethical standards in his students” (Husing 2008).

Marston was instrumental in developing numerous innovations in the field of engineering and at the university, and he served as mentor to the nation’s only female professor of structural engineering, Elmina Wilson (1870–1918). Wilson was the first woman to receive a civil engineering degree from ISU (in 1892) and the first of her sex to earn a master’s degree in civil engineering from any American university (in 1894). Under Marston’s guidance, she became an outstanding professor and engineer. After Wilson had received her bachelor’s degree, Marston encouraged her to do advanced study at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and at Cornell University, his alma mater. A significant historic engineering project on which Wilson and Marston worked closely was the first elevated steel water tower built west of the Mississippi. Today, the intricate 168-ft-tall structure in Ames, Iowa, known as the Marston Water Tower, is listed on the National Register of Historical Places.

Once Conde entered ISU in 1906, he quickly caught Marston’s attention and favor. The diligent and studious Conde held several odd jobs to stay in school. Although no records exist indicating whether McCullough ever worked with (or even knew) Wilson, having the savvy Marston as their mutual mentor and role model suggests he may have shared some of their individual exploits with the other, since both were star pupils and favorites. In addition to Marston and the ISU engineering community, everyone in Ames was shocked on hearing of Elmina’s unexpected death in 1918 at the age of 47. She had been living in New York City and making her mark engineering some of the city’s increasingly tall buildings.

Early in 1904, the Iowa state legislature located its newly established Iowa State Highway Commission (ISHC) on the ISU campus. Thomas MacDonald (1881–1957), an ambitious contemporary of Marston’s, was selected as its head. While Conde was a student at ISU, MacDonald’s agency was providing technical advice on road and bridge construction to many of Iowa’s counties. Later it would greatly expand its operations to provide more and more advanced and comprehensive engineering services.

After graduating from ISU with a degree in civil engineering in 1910, McCullough went to work for the Marsh Bridge Company, based in Des Moines, Iowa. By the time he joined the Marsh firm, its energetic, dynamic founder James B. Marsh (1856–1936)—a native of Wisconsin and an engineering graduate of ISU—had already been bankrupt once. But when Marsh hired McCullough, his reorganized company was doing well, and the future looked promising. The ever-optimistic Marsh, a consummate salesman, had recently obtained a patent for a new type of bridge construction and was aggressively promoting it and marketing its use.

Marsh’s innovative design, called the “rainbow arch bridge,” basically consisted of arched structural steel trusses encased in concrete, a highly effective composite steel–concrete system. Its design quickly earned Marsh and his firm a national reputation. From the early 1910s through the late 1930s, several hundred Marsh rainbow arch bridges—and copied variations of Marsh’s design—were constructed nationwide. Today, many Marsh rainbow arch bridges, like the Cotter Bridge in Arkansas (which has been designated an ASCE National Historic Civil Engineering Landmark), are listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

Being at Marsh early on while basic concrete arch bridge details were being developed no doubt allowed McCullough to work on—or intermingle with those who were working on—many early rainbow arch bridges, including the only multispan Marsh rainbow arch bridge left standing in Iowa, the three-span, 240-ft-long Lake City Bridge over the Raccoon River in Calhoun County. It opened to traffic in 1914, while McCullough was a leading engineer at ISHC and in charge of reviewing and/or approving such designs.

Marsh’s arch concept would influence McCullough’s work his whole career. McCullough’s 3,223-ft-long Yaquina Bay Bridge at Newport, Oregon, completed in 1936, and many of his smaller spans throughout Oregon are especially noteworthy examples of Marsh’s influence on McCullough’s bridge design philosophies.

In 1911, when Marston encouraged McCullough to leave Marsh to work for the rapidly growing ISHC, the innovative Marsh was on the verge of another historic happening, the hiring of his company’s first black engineer, Archibald Alexander (1888–1958). Alexander was both the first African American to play on the University of Iowa’s football team (ISU’s interstate rival) and the first of his race to receive a civil engineering degree from the institution, which he did in 1912 (2 years after McCullough received his bachelor’s from ISU). Alexander accomplished the feat in 4 years, even though he, like McCullough, had to work at a number of low-paying jobs to support himself, pay for his own tuition, and help with family expenses.

At 6 ft 2 in. and a standout starting guard for 3 years, the towering Alexander was nicknamed “Alexander the Great.” When he first enrolled in the college of engineering—and often afterward—his engineering professors tried to dissuade him, saying they had never heard of a black engineer, let alone one that was successful in the profession. They suggested he select another major. But Alexander was not dissuaded.

In 1914, after only $2\frac{1}{2}$ years with Marsh’s company, the enterprising Alexander struck out on his own, founding his own engineering firm—A. A. Alexander, Inc. At first, Alexander’s company, which he set up to do bridge design and construction, ended up doing jobs for which no other firm competed, often projects very small in scope. Once the high quality of his work became known, though, things changed. Although Alexander started out specializing in the design and construction of steel and concrete bridges, he soon took on a wide array of project types throughout the United States. On his Iowa bridge projects, he undoubtedly encountered one of his fellow “Marsh graduates” in an important position at ISHC, Conde McCullough. By 1914, McCullough was second in command at ISHC. Only MacDonald outranked him.

Many of Alexander’s successful national bridge projects were in Washington, DC, including the $1.5 million Tidal Basin Bridge and Seawall and the $3.5 million Whitehall Freeway along the Potomac River. He also built a number of major bridges for the Chicago, Rock Island and Pacific Railroad in western Iowa and Missouri and the Moton Airfield in Tuskegee, Alabama.

For his years of activism in the Republican Party and for backing Dwight Eisenhower during his first presidential campaign, as well as for his lifelong accomplishments, can-do attitude, and knowledge of the Caribbean, Alexander was named governor of the U.S. Virgin Islands in 1954. Poor health forced his retirement, and he moved back to Des Moines to recover. But he never did. He died of a heart attack on January 4, 1958, at age 70. In his will, he left a $315,000 trust fund ($1.5 million in today’s dollars), divided equally, to the University of Iowa, Howard University, and Tuskegee Institute (University) for endowed engineering scholarships.

By 1911, when ISHC hired McCullough as its bridge engineer and assistant highway engineer, the agency was already greatly expanding its operations and reach. McCullough headed a team of talented young college graduates that quickly drafted plans and standards for bridges and culverts recommended for and to be used by Iowa’s counties. Then in 1913, the Iowa legislature passed legislation requiring that all Iowa counties follow road and bridge designs prepared by ISHC; “this mandate on local governments marked a huge step forward for the good roads movement and made Iowa a national leader in highway development” (Husing 2008).

Serving under—and becoming a good friend of—the aggressive MacDonald would prove to be a great stroke of luck for McCullough for several reasons. For one, after ISHC, MacDonald became chief of the U.S. Bureau of Public Roads (BPR), a powerful federal agency determining federal highway policy. He would hold the lofty position for 34 years, from 1919 until 1953, during which time he and McCullough would collaborate on many successful projects.

Additionally, while at ISHC, MacDonald allowed his young engineers, in particular McCullough, a lot of leeway. It gave the inquiring McCullough unlimited opportunity to hone his skills as a bridge designer:

Because there was little professional literature, he devoted long hours to basic and applied research in structural challenges, hoping to find efficient and economical solutions to vexing engineering problems. He excelled in the mathematics involved in engineering calculations, and became known as an authority on bridge engineering when he offered expert testimony in court cases against unscrupulous bridge entrepreneurs. The expertise he gained helped him rise above his counterparts scattered across the country in other fledgling state highway departments and earned him widespread professional recognition. (Hadlow 2001)

Then suddenly, in 1916, after receiving his master’s degree from ISU, McCullough left Iowa with his wife Maria (née Roddan) and infant son John and took a job teaching civil–structural engineering at Oregon Agricultural College in Corvallis, the state’s land grant school (now Oregon State University [OSU]). He started out as a one-man structural engineering department and within 2 years was a full professor and head of the civil engineering department.

In April 1919, the Oregon State Highway Commission (OSHC) lured McCullough from OSU. He took the position of state bridge engineer and moved his family to the state capital, Salem. One of the main reasons he took the job was that there were high hopes that substantial resources would soon be flowing into Oregon’s highway construction program: “In 1919, Oregon was the first state in the Union to establish a fuel tax of one-cent-a-gallon. And under the Federal Aid Roads Act, Congress began providing matching funds to states to strengthen state highway construction programs” (Husing 2008).

In the 18 years McCullough headed OSHC’s bridge design and construction program, he designed and built bridges that still stand as monuments to his engineering skill as well as his understanding of structural art. Arches were the signature element of his designs. In addition,

Reinforced concrete became McCullough’s preferred medium over steel or wood. Some experts at the time viewed concrete as an expensive material requiring tedious mathematical calculations, but McCullough argued that lower maintenance expenses offset initial costs. He preferred the reinforced-arch in large-span construction and he believed the arch cast in concrete was more economical than obvious alternates. His vision became a key component in transforming Oregon into a traveler’s paradise that would generate state revenues through increased fuel taxes and stimulated local markets. (Hadlow 2001)

In his first 6 years at the OSHC bridge department, McCullough and his staff designed and built more than 600 bridges statewide. Most of the early bridges were reinforced concrete structures spanning smaller streams. His first important reinforced concrete arch structure was the 505-ft-long Rock Point Bridge, completed in 1920. It uniquely combined aesthetics with efficiency and economy and foretold of the bridges that would follow. Significant among the early ones were the multiarched, 884-ft-long North Umpqua River Bridge and the bold Rocky Creek Bridge (Fig. 7), which was eventually renamed the Ben F. Jones Bridge in honor of the man many call “the father of the Oregon Coast Highway.”

As reported in the Oregon Coastal Notes (March 2002),

The clear leader of early lobbying efforts to build a highway on the Oregon Coast was Ben Jones (1858–1925) from Lincoln County. As a young man, Jones served as a mail carrier on the central Oregon Coast and experienced the primitive nature of the roads on the Oregon Coast. In 1892, Jones led a delegation of coastal people to Benton County Courthouse in Corvallis to petition for road improvements. (Husing 2008)

When the delegation’s requests were denied, Jones and his group became more determined. One year later, in 1893, they established Lincoln County, splintering away from Benton County. The new county’s main desire was to work on ways to improve transportation on the Oregon Coast. Then in 1919, while serving as a state representative, Jones wrote the first bill authorizing construction of a major Oregon Coast road. Four months later, Oregonians voted in favor of the measure by a 2-to-1 margin, and the state’s famous coastal highway, U.S. 101, was born. It would be decades, however, before the necessary funding could be secured and construction completed.

Actually building Oregon’s 350-mile-long portion of U.S. 101 was a complex process. The topography, for one, was daunting. Plus, certain special-interest groups tried to influence design criteria every chance they could. Oregon timber companies, for instance, lobbied to have all the route’s bridges built out of wood, of which the state had lots. McCullough prevailed, though, and the highway’s bridges were solidly constructed of steel and concrete, which extended their lives considerably over timber structures.

In the end, the scenic U.S. 101 through Oregon cost an estimated $25 million ($550 million in today’s dollars) and took 15 years to complete, from 1921 to 1936. Its success was brought about, in no small measure, by the dedication and persistence of two bold young men, a mailman-turned-state-representative and a visionary structural engineer.

From the very beginning of his job as bridge engineer, McCullough and his OSHC team tackled crossing Oregon’s smaller streams first, then built increasingly longer bridges. They gradually were able to stitch together miles and miles of individually paved roads into a cohesive state highway network. This same tackle-the-smaller-streams-first approach was eventually used in successfully constructing U.S. 101 and all the connector roads to it, allowing Oregon citizens traveling by car easy access not only to the coastal highway itself but also to all the beach resorts along the Oregon Coast.

McCullough’s innovative designs on a wide variety of bridges throughout the state and, especially later in his career, on the Oregon Coast Highway launched him to national and international prominence: “His designs represented the pinnacle of bridge design for their use of engineering advances and their architectural style to fit the natural setting, [and] contemporary and subsequent critics saw them as masterpieces in design” (Hadlow 2001). Early on, though, as a young up-and-coming state engineer, McCullough’s talents and potential were not always fully appreciated by the local powers that be. As is often the case, there existed in Oregon in the late 1920s the mistaken idea that an expert surely had to be someone from out of town (or out of state).

In 1929, Oregon held a national design competition for a massive structure, the St. John’s Bridge, across the Willamette River near Portland. It attracted entries from some of the finest bridge engineering firms in the world. McCullough, undaunted, submitted an entry, even though he lacked the large bridge experience of competitors such as David Steinman (1887–1960). They were the same age, but Steinman’s resume overflowed with impressive and heroic large bridge projects. Of particular note were the 1926 Florianopolis Bridge in Brazil (the largest bridge in South America), the 1927 Carquinez Strait Bridge northeast of San Francisco, California, and the 1929 Grand Mere Bridge over the St. Maurice River in Quebec, Canada.

Steinman’s submittal was an uncommonly beautiful Gothic steel suspension bridge design. Its slender and soaring lines, art deco towers, and light green color perfectly complemented Oregon’s scenery and harmonized with the forest-covered hills along the Willamette River. Hands down, Steinman won the competition. Of his many spectacular suspension bridges—even the Mackinac Straits Bridge in Michigan that held the title as the world’s longest suspension bridge (under-cable) for more than 40 years (from 1957 until 1998)—the St. John’s Bridge was among Steinman’s proudest achievements. He often said, “If you asked me which of the bridges I love best, I believe I would say the St. John’s Bridge. I put more of myself into that bridge than any other bridge” (Husing 2008).

McCullough’s son John said his father was also deeply impressed by the design of St. John’s Bridge and had high praise for Steinman’s creativity, innovations, and architectural treatment of it. Although McCullough lost out to Steinman in the design competition for St. John’s Bridge, the two had great respect for each other’s talents and accomplishments. In the end, their relationship developed into a close lifelong friendship.

Although both were slightly less than average in height, they had a commanding presence in any surrounding. They were daring men with solid egos and a true sense of their self-worth and expertise, Steinman more so than McCullough. They both admired the other’s bridge design philosophies and what each had accomplished (and was accomplishing). Both were workaholics and dapper and fastidious dressers; McCullough was often pictured wearing a fedora hat set low over his forehead and sporting a flowing topcoat that gave him a Humphrey Bogart-like look.

The chain-smoking McCullough was known to his friends as “Mac,” and according to his son John, he was a very likable man who could get along with everyone because “he genuinely loved people” (Husing 2008). He was a voracious reader, a good musician (fiddle and piano), and an accomplished mathematician—and, like Steinman, he was a prolific writer who produced acclaimed books and technical bulletins on engineering and engineering-related topics. He even dabbled in writing nonfiction mysteries, though none of his stories, with structural engineers as the heroes, was ever published.

When America’s economy began faltering with the stock market crash of October 1929, Oregon’s state highway funds rapidly declined, then essentially came to a halt as the Great Depression took hold. Despite the overwhelming public support for new highway and bridge projects, Oregon, like every other state in the Union, lost its capacity to fund such improvements. Oregonians and many other Americans looked to the federal government for solutions. Oregon was in better shape than most other states because its plans for U.S. 101 were serious and already materializing.

Because planners knew that U.S. 101 through Oregon would never happen until the six major rivers and/or estuaries along the state’s rugged coast were spanned, planning for the structures was well under way at the start of the Depression. In fact, design for the first of the six waterway crossings, the structure over the Rogue River at Gold Beach, was mostly completed. Built in 1932, the stunning 1,900-ft-long Rogue River Bridge—a series of seven reinforced and post-tensioned concrete arches—was the first structure in the United States using French engineer Eugene Freyssinet’s prestressing methods for inducing precompression in concrete arches.

Once the Rogue River structure was built and ready for use, Oregon was well positioned for attracting federal help for building its other five coastal highway bridges:

When Franklin D. Roosevelt [FDR] took office in March 1933, the stars lined up to make the Oregon Coast a showcase for economic recovery. Remarkably, McCullough and his staff of bridge engineers [working in two shifts, from 6:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m. and from 3:00 p.m. to midnight] designed the five bridges in 3 months! Two-and-a-half years later, five bridges—each one a masterpiece—spanned all the remaining major coastal water barriers. (Husing 2008)

The five-bridge project cost approximately $6 million ($132 million in today’s dollars) and needed some major financial backing. Funding came from a 30% federal grant and 70% federal loan to the State of Oregon. Oregon issued general obligation bonds to assume the debt.

Federal guidelines under FDR’s New Deal policies dictated that construction of the bridges be labor intensive so hundreds of people could be put to work. When possible, workers were instructed to use hand tools instead of power tools. The Civilian Conservation Corps, another key New Deal program, brought young people from around the country to the Oregon Coast to work on construction of U.S. 101. To this day, their beautiful stonework can be admired at numerous spots along the highway. At some locations, workers laboriously hand chiseled right-of-way clearances into rock cliffs. The breathtaking vistas created high above the Pacific Ocean continue to be featured on postcards and calendars and in popular travel guidebooks.

The last of Oregon’s six great coastal bridges, the Yaquina Bay Bridge, was opened to traffic on September 6, 1936. Even though it would mark the height of McCullough’s highway bridge career on the American West Coast, he was not in attendance for the gala opening ceremonies of the spectacular $1.5 million (approximately $33 million in today’s dollars) multiarched structure. He was out of the country in Central America.

The builders of the Yaquina Bay Bridge had had a number of demanding issues to resolve. The bridge’s main span was flanked by identical 350-ft steel arches while the rest of the multispan structure was reinforced concrete. About 250 people worked continuously placing the 30,000-plus cubic yards of concrete required, while 3,100 tons of steel had to be fabricated on a nonstop basis. Countless wooden pilings, driven 50 ft below the channel bed, were needed to support and stabilize the massive structure’s pier foundations: “Swift currents posed an incredible challenge in placing Pier No. 2, which required a 100-hour continuous pour of 2,200 yards of concrete. When a concrete pour began, it continued 24 hours a day no matter how bad the weather” (Wyatt 2000).

McCullough’s accomplishments as Oregon’s bridge engineer made him the BPR’s logical choice to design and build several challenging bridges for the Inter-American Highway. So as the Yaquina Bay project was reaching completion, he took a leave of absence from the Oregon highway department and spent a year and a half in Panama, Honduras, Guatemala, and other Central American countries engineering bridges and other difficult structures for the highway, all under the auspices of the BPR. The main bridges he designed included three suspension bridges spanning Rio Chiriquí in Panama, Rio Choluteca in Honduras (Fig. 8), and Rio Tamasalupa in Guatemala.

Upon returning to Oregon in 1937, McCullough was promoted to assistant state engineer, and he became an unwilling administrator. His position as bridge engineer had been given to his subordinate Glen Paxson. McCullough said he was “kicked upstairs” into administration, which he disliked intensely.

In his new position, McCullough frequently clashed with his superior, Robert Baldcock. About what did they mostly argue?

A paradigm shift was underway around the country. The steel–reinforced concrete construction techniques pioneered by McCullough and others led to a new generation of bridge construction designs—prestressed reinforced-concrete girder spans. As a result, plain-looking, standard bridge designs became the preferred method to build bridges because they were cheap and effective. McCullough, though, still passionately believed bridges should be customized to fit their setting, and when possible, be beautiful. (Husing 2008)

The movement from beautiful to cheap caused McCullough to pen these words in an editorial for the Eugene Register-Guard (May 7, 1946):

If we engineers had souls, which I doubt, we might have to take to the back roads to keep from blushing every time we see some of the things we have done. But on the other hand, I’m kinda human like the rest of humanity, and I’ll admit that there’s at least one or two bridges I’ve had a hand in, and when I look at them, I kinda figure I’ll have some alibi when I see St. Pete. Not all of ’em, you understand, but some of ’em did come out so good they make life worth living.

During the 1920s and 1930s, McCullough became a highly productive author of bridge engineering books and comprehensive engineering articles, bulletins, and periodicals for the BPR and other technical groups. Additionally, his interest in the convergence of law and engineering prompted him to enroll in evening classes at Willamette University in Salem to study law. Shortly after receiving his law degree in June 1928, he was admitted to the Oregon bar. He subsequently wrote a seminal legal book with his son John, who had become a lawyer, titled The Engineer at Law: A Resume of Modern Engineering Jurisprudence. Notable among his other books and book-length technical bulletins were

In the last 10 years of his career, “McCullough turned his energy to researching highway department management questions and writing about engineering law” (Hadlow 2001). He was also active in developing a comprehensive master plan for the city of Salem. As a longtime member of the Salem Chamber of Commerce, he chaired the Chamber’s Long Range Planning Commission in his later years, producing “A Long Range Plan for Salem, Oregon,” a wide-ranging document still in use.

The American Institute of Steel Construction named McCullough’s John McLoughlin Bridge over the Clackamas River its most meritorious structure of 1933, and in 1934 McCullough was granted an honorary doctor of engineering degree from OSU.

After World War II, the BPR asked McCullough to return to Central America to continue work on the Inter-American Highway. Two days before his departure, on Sunday May 5, 1946, he collapsed at home after an afternoon of gardening and was rushed to the hospital. But there was little hope. He had suffered a massive stroke. By 3:00 Monday morning he was dead, 25 days shy of his 59th birthday. At his bedside were his widow Marie and son John and his wife.

Breathtaking photographs of many of McCullough’s coastal bridges grace countless coffee-table books and wall calendars: “History has been kind to Conde McCullough. Today, his bridge designs appear on murals, logos, business signs, stationery, coffee cups, and magazine covers. Each year, engineers from around the world travel to the Oregon Coast to see his bridges” (Husing 2008). The Coos Bay Bridge was renamed the Conde B. McCullough Memorial Bridge in his memory, and a plaque was attached that reads, “Dedicated to the memory/of/Conde Balcom McCullough/whose genius and inspiration/are manifest in the design/of this bridge and/many other Oregon bridges/during his period of service/as bridge engineer/and/assistant state highway engineer/1919 to 1946.” In 1998, OSU inducted McCullough into its prestigious Engineering Hall of Fame.