The Dent Bridge is a suspension bridge

Suspension bridge

A suspension bridge is a type of bridge in which the deck is hung below suspension cables on vertical suspenders. Outside Tibet and Bhutan, where the first examples of this type of bridge were built in the 15th century, this type of bridge dates from the early 19th century...

 located near Orofino, Idaho

Orofino, Idaho

Orofino is a city in Clearwater County, Idaho, along Orofino Creek and the north bank of the Clearwater River. The population was 3,247 at the 2000 census, and the city is the county seat of Clearwater County...

, United States

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

. It is located 17 miles (27.4 km) up the North Fork of the former Clearwater River, now the Dworshak Reservoir. Completed in 1971, the bridge has a main span of 1550 feet (472.4 m).

History

Built in conjunction with the Dworshak Dam by the Army Corps of Engineers during the early 1970s, this bridge provides local access over the flooded river, now Dworshak Reservoir. Without the bridge, vehicle access from Ahsahka to the small community of Elk River would be blocked off. The US Army 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 53 miles (85.3 km) long reservoir 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 most suitable for road access as well as for the bridge construction itself.

The 1550 feet (472.4 m) long suspension bridge is an attractive wonder, both in size and in appearance. The Dent Bridge was named for Charles and Katherine Dent, who homesteaded the land on the west end of the bridge in 1895.