Flathead River Bridge

Listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2010.

From the record

“The Flathead River Bridge otherwise known as the Red Bridge is an abandoned steel truss bridge located at the south end of 4th Ave in Columbia Falls, Montana. The bridge was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 2010.”
Wikipedia article Flathead River Bridge, CC BY-SA 4.0.

One of 168 National Register listings published here for Flathead County · listed in 2010 · category: Structure.

Sources: the Wikipedia article · the case file at the National Archives · the National Register database, National Park Service

The listing

What is counted as historic. The nomination lists 1 structure as contributing to the listing.
Address. South end of 4th Ave., Columbia Falls, 59912
When was it listed? June 2010
Category. structure
Also known as. Montana's Historic Steel Truss Bridges
Census division. Columbia Falls
National Register reference number. 10000183 - the number the National Park Service assigned this property when it was listed, and the key its nomination file is catalogued under at the National Archives.

Fires near this property

137 since 1992

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal wildfire occurrence database lists 137 fires within 5 miles of Flathead River Bridge between 1992 and 2020, burning about 158 acres in total. 9 started naturally. 1 was recorded as arson. Distance is straight-line from the map coordinates, so a fire counted here may appear on a neighbouring settlement's page as well.

Reported cause	Fires
Missing data/not specified/undetermined	58
Debris and open burning	28
Recreation and ceremony	12
Natural	9
Equipment and vehicle use	7
Smoking	6
Fireworks	5
Power generation/transmission/distribution	4
Misuse of fire by a minor	3
Other causes	2
Railroad operations and maintenance	2
Arson/incendiarism	1

The most recent of them, most recent first, with the day each was reported and the service that recorded it.

Date	Cause	Size	Reported by	Name on the report
9 September 1994	Missing data/not specified/undetermined	under an acre	Northwestern Land Office	TRAP ROAD
7 September 1992	Missing data/not specified/undetermined	under an acre	Northwestern Land Office	HIDEAWAY
3 September 2020	Missing data/not specified/undetermined	under an acre	Flathead County	HWY 206 / COLUMBIA MEADOWS DR-CF
28 September 2010	Debris and open burning	under an acre	Northwestern Land Office	TOFTUM LANE
24 September 1994	Missing data/not specified/undetermined	under an acre	Northwestern Land Office	SOUTH CEDER LAKE
22 September 2001	Missing data/not specified/undetermined	under an acre	Northwestern Land Office	not named
22 September 1999	Smoking	under an acre	Northwestern Land Office	CEDAR CREEK
20 September 1994	Recreation and ceremony	under an acre	Flathead National Forest	not named

Every fire recorded in Flathead County

Mines and quarries near this property

4 within 5 miles

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal mineral resources record lists 4 workings within 5 miles of Flathead River Bridge: 3 producers, 1 plant. All of them still produce. What was taken out: Sand and Gravel, Construction, Aluminum, Contained or Metal. Distance is straight-line from the map coordinates, so a quarry counted here may appear on a neighbouring settlement's page as well.

Site	Commodity	Status	Recorded
(Facility) Columbia Falls Aluminum Co. Smelter	Aluminum, Contained or Metal	Plant	1955
Art Weaver Crusher	Sand and Gravel, Construction	Producer
Blue Moon Pit	Sand and Gravel, Construction	Producer
Crushing Plant No.. 1	Sand and Gravel, Construction	Producer

Every working recorded in Flathead County

Storms near this property

10 since 1996

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The National Weather Service names Columbia Falls, the town this property stands in, in 10 storm reports between 1996 and 2016: 4 hail, 4 thunderstorm wind, 2 flood. No death or injury is recorded in these reports. Each account below is quoted exactly as the forecast office filed it, from the NOAA Storm Events Database, and each date opens the federal record of that event.

When	Event	Place named	Harm	What the report says
May 2016	Flood	Columbia Falls	$35,000	Between 4 to 6 inches of rain fell within 24 hours causing Spoon and Duck lakes to spill out onto Lake Drive and North Fork Road, and ending up near the Blankenship Road intersection as culverts were unable to handle the extra runoff. Rabe Road also experienced flooding from water originating from the Tea Kettle Mountain area. A private sensor located east-northeast of the Tea Kettle North Mountain or about 3 miles northwest of Coram, measured 6.29 inches of rainfall. The flooding closed North Fork Rd and Rabe Rd which impacted 25 to 30 residents. At least fifteen structures including basements and shop garages were flooded. One unfinished garage saw water that rose to near the ceiling. A fire chief with the Blankenship Fire Department who lives just off of North Fork Road outside of Columbia Falls reported that over three thousand gallons of water flooded his finished basement during this event. On May 23rd, more intense rain developed just north of Columbia Falls resulting in Trumble Creek coming out of its banks. This placed water around seven homes, but did not cause much damage or prevent residents from access. Glacier National Park closed the Going-to-the-Sun-Road at the Apgar Loop Junction due to a culvert washout in the afternoon of May 23rd. Another reason why the culvert was overwhelmed was due to beaver dams breaking up higher in the drainage. At least two portions of the Forest Service road 895 past the Hungry Horse Dam were washed out on May 23rd including Beta Creek. Forest service road 316 from the 6.3 mile marker on North Fork Road to the Canyon Creek area also experienced several washouts.
July 2010	Thunderstorm Wind	Columbia Falls	$20,000	A trained spotter estimated wind gusts up to 65 mph with trees blown down on to roads.
August 2013	Thunderstorm Wind	Columbia Falls	$15,000	The Daily Inter Lake newspaper reported that a tree had fallen on a home on Kokanee Bend two miles southwest of Columbia Falls. The law enforcement scanner traffic indicated that the tree had cut the home in half trapping the people inside. They were uninjured and were eventually able to get out of the house.
August 2013	Thunderstorm Wind	Columbia Falls	$4,000	A trained spotter reported strong gusty winds that brought down power lines and trees of unknown size. They also reported pea size hail.
May 2013	Flood	Columbia Falls	-	Farmer crops adjacent to the Flathead River between Evergreen and Columbia Falls were inundated with water.
August 2013	Hail	Columbia Falls	-	A trained spotter reported nickel size hail southwest of Columbia Falls.
May 2007	Hail	Columbia Falls	-	A member of the public reported nickel to quarter sized hail 2 miles west of Columbia Falls.
May 2007	Hail	Columbia Falls	-	Columbia Falls Police called with a report that 0.75 inch diameter hail fell from the thunderstorm that passed through town.
May 1998	Thunderstorm Wind	Columbia Falls	-	no account filed
July 1996	Hail	Columbia Falls	-	no account filed

Every storm recorded in Flathead County

Map coverage status

No historic map-sheet match is published for this property yet. That does not mean no map exists. This record needs a coordinate-quality review before it can be joined to a sheet boundary. Browse the county's mapped places while that work is pending.

Listed places nearby

6 within 8 miles

Other National Register properties close enough to walk or drive between, ordered by distance from this one. Both positions come from the same geocoding pass that matched these properties to their map sheets.

Property	Distance	Listed
St. Richard's Church	0.8 miles	1980
Soldiers' Home Historic District	1.3 miles	1994
Ray E. Taylor House	7.7 miles	1990
First Presbyterian Church of Whitefish	7.7 miles	2004
Lockridge Medical Clinic	7.8 miles	2012
Great Northern Railway Passenger and Freight Depot and Division Office	7.8 miles	2002

Sources for this property

National Archives record	The nomination case file for reference 10000183 in Record Group 79.
Wikipedia article	Community-written account of this property, licensed CC BY-SA.
Flathead County	All 168 listed properties in this county.

Provenance

Listing record. National Park Service National Register of Historic Places, listed-properties dataset, current to 2026-05-22.
Map join. Address geocoded through the United States Census geocoder, then tested against the published boundary of every sheet in the USGS Historical Topographic Map Collection.
How this page is made. Listing fields come from federal records; map-sheet coverage is a labelled coordinate-to-boundary calculation, not a source-field claim.
Wildfire. Short, Karen C. 2022. Spatial wildfire occurrence data for the United States, 1992-2020 [FPA_FOD_20221014]. 6th Edition. Fort Collins, CO: Forest Service Research Data Archive. https://doi.org/10.2737/RDS-2013-0009.6 Collected with United States Government funding and usable without additional permissions or fees.
Mines and quarries. USGS Mineral Resources Data System (MRDS) https://mrdata.usgs.gov/mrds/ A work of the United States government, no copyright under 17 U.S.C. 105.
Storms. NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information, Storm Events Database https://www.ncei.noaa.gov/stormevents/ A work of the United States government, no copyright under 17 U.S.C. 105. Narratives are quoted verbatim from the National Weather Service report and are not edited or summarised.