Highway art: the Siuslaw River Bridge, at the south end of Florence.

There's an underrated scenic attraction -- or a bunch of them, actually -- along the Oregon coast: the bridges along Highway 101.

Five of the major bridges spanning bays and rivers were designed and built under the leadership of one man, Conde Balcom McCullough, reputed as Oregon's premier bridge designer and builder, and responsible for construction of nearly 600 bridges in Oregon, according to Kenn Oberrecht's "Oregon Coast Access Guide," one of our principle sources of information on this coast.

The Yaquina Bay Bridge in Newport.

Amazingly, he built all five of his masterpiece coastal bridges -- at Newport, Waldport, Florence, Reedsport and Coos Bay -- in only two years, between 1934 and 1936. All but the original Waldport bridge remain in service.

"These days, it would take longer to prepare an Environmental Impact Statement and secure all the necessary permits for any one of those bridges," Oberrecht writes. They completed the Coast Highway from the Columbia River to California, making this journey we've done possible.

And McCullough's spans aren't just amazing feats of engineering, they're works of art, with carved designs in the concrete, sky-kissing spires and graceful arches. Enjoy them on your trip.

The McCullough Memorial Bridge at Coos Bay was named for the
famous bridge builder of the Oregon coast.