Brian Grogan, Photography + Preservation Associates:

In 1991 the Historic American Engineering Record (HAER) program of the National Park Service performed a formal historical documentation of the historic bridges and roads of Yosemite National Park.

I was wonderfully fortunate to be hired by the National Park Service to produce the HAER documentation photography for this project. At the time I had lived in the Yosemite area for almost fifteen years and was certainly familiar with the bridges, having crossed them innumerable times as well as floated or swam under many of them.

Yet this assignment to produce the historical record photographs of these elegant structures lead me to an entirely new appreciation of the inherent beauty of the bridges, the craftsmanship of their construction, and the legacy they represent in the history of the National Parks.

The Sugar Pine Bridge in Yosemite Valley is an outstanding historic example of the rustic architectural style that has served as the defining design aesthetic for the National Park Service, both in Yosemite National Park and throughout the National Parks system.

Such considered care was given in these early days of the National Parks to gracefully incorporating these structures into the landscape that the designs for these Yosemite Valley bridges underwent a formal review and approval process under the auspices of the National Commission of Fine Arts.

Sugar Pine Bridge should be saved both for its aesthetic and historic value as well as for the means it provides for the park visitors to explore and experience the wonders of Yosemite.

Editor’s note: The formal HAER documents from Yosemite are now housed in the United States Library of Congress, including a history of these features, formal drawings of the bridges, and large format black and white photographs. All this material is available to the public and easily accessible online.