Fairfax Bridge

Listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1982.

From the record

“The Fairfax Bridge is a steel-lattice three-hinged arch bridge spanning the Carbon River on State Route 165 in Pierce County, Washington. Previous to the construction of the bridge in 1921, the only route south to the area around Fairfax was by train.”
Wikipedia article Fairfax Bridge (Washington), CC BY-SA 4.0.

One of 215 National Register listings published here for Pierce County · listed in 1982 · 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. Spans Carbon River, S of Wilkeson, Melmont, 98323
When was it listed? July 1982
Category. structure
Also known as. Historic Bridges/Tunnels in Washington State TR
Census division. Mount Rainier
National Register reference number. 82004273 - 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

32 since 1992

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal wildfire occurrence database lists 32 fires within 5 miles of Fairfax Bridge between 1992 and 2020, burning about 20 acres in total. 2 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
Recreation and ceremony	11
Missing data/not specified/undetermined	9
Debris and open burning	4
Other causes	2
Natural	2
Power generation/transmission/distribution	1
Arson/incendiarism	1
Misuse of fire by a minor	1
Fireworks	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
5 September 1997	Natural	2.0 acres	Washington State Department of Natural Resources Headquarters	not named
4 September 2007	Debris and open burning	under an acre	Washington State Department of Natural Resources Headquarters	not named
23 September 2012	Recreation and ceremony	under an acre	Washington State Department of Natural Resources Headquarters	CARBON SPOT
21 September 1994	Other causes	under an acre	Washington State Department of Natural Resources Headquarters	not named
2 September 2019	Missing data/not specified/undetermined	under an acre	Washington State Department of Natural Resources Headquarters	UPPER CARBON
31 August 2013	Recreation and ceremony	under an acre	Washington State Department of Natural Resources Headquarters	FAIRFAX BRIDGE
27 August 1999	Recreation and ceremony	3.5 acres	Washington State Department of Natural Resources Headquarters	not named
25 August 2006	Misuse of fire by a minor	2.5 acres	Washington State Department of Natural Resources Headquarters	not named

Every fire recorded in Pierce County

Mines and quarries near this property

10 of 14 shown

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal mineral resources record lists 14 workings within 5 miles of Fairfax Bridge: 13 past producers, 1 occurrence. None of them still produces. What was taken out: Sand and Gravel, Construction, Flagstone, Stone, Clay. 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
Cowling Ridge Area	Clay, Stone, Dimension	Occurrence
Carbon Ridge Blowdown	Stone	Past Producer
Clearwest-Westfork Pit	Stone	Past Producer
Fairfax Quarry	Flagstone	Past Producer
Walker Quarry	Flagstone	Past Producer
Gravel Pit	Sand and Gravel, Construction	Past Producer
Gravel Pit	Sand and Gravel, Construction	Past Producer
Gravel Pit	Sand and Gravel, Construction	Past Producer
Gravel Pit	Sand and Gravel, Construction	Past Producer
Gregg Pit	Sand and Gravel, Construction	Past Producer

Every working recorded in Pierce 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
Wilkeson School	4.2 miles	1976
Coke Ovens	4.2 miles	1974
Wilkeson Community House	4.4 miles	2013
Holy Trinity Orthodox Church	4.6 miles	1989
Walker Cut Stone Company	4.7 miles	1978
Wilkeson Arch	4.8 miles	2000

Sources for this property

National Archives record	The nomination case file for reference 82004273 in Record Group 79.
Wikipedia article	Community-written account of this property, licensed CC BY-SA.
Pierce County	All 215 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.