Bridges have spanned the Los Angeles river since the 1840's when they were mainly metal truss rail bridges.  They were practical and easy to put up but they were often casualties of frequent river floods.  One such bridge survived to the 1990s when it was replaced by a new bridge for the Metro Gold line.

By the early 1900s, the metal truss bridges were regarded as too ugly and sober for the growing city.  The World's Columbian Exposition of 1893 touched off a a movement to beautify cities with Beaux Arts and Neo-Classical architecture and style elements.  The first such bridge to be built in Los Angeles was the Buena Vista bridge on north Broadway, built between 1909 and 1911.  When it opened, it was the longest and widest concrete bridge in the entire state.

Three of the bridges, the Riverside Figueroa Street, Riverside Zoo Drive and Lankershim Avenue bridges, were funded by Works Progress Administration programs of the 1930s.  A landslide in Elysian Park in 1937 destroyed most of the concrete arch span on the Figueroa Street bridge and the WPA funded a metal truss support replacement in 1939.

Preservationists were spurred into action by the city undertaking bridge improvement plans that will affect six of the bridges.  In most cases, these improvements involve seismic retrofitting and in the instance of the 6th Street bridge, possible reconstruction due to the deterioration of the concrete.  Having the bridges declared Historic-Cultural Monuments help to ensure that proper mitigation measures will be taken to lessen any negative impacts to the historic bridges during any retrofitting projects.

Source:  Office of Historic Resources, City of Los Angeles, Los Angeles River Bridges
30 January 2008

Source:  Los Angeles Times, Looking out for L.A. River's bridges
By Daniela Perdomo, 28 January 2008