Size Matters: The Scariest Bridge in Texas
There is more than one bridge in Texas that can be particularly troubling for those who suffer from gephyrophobia—the fear of bridges.
The Pecos River High Bridge can certainly give you goosebumps when viewed from the right angle. The Harbor Bridge in Corpus Christi may stop you in your tracks if the outer bands of a tropical storm catch you at the top. Some of those five-level interchanges in Dallas and Houston can cause a palpitation or two, but in my opinion, the scariest bridge in Texas is the Rainbow Bridge over the Neches River between Port Arthur and Orange on Texas State Highway 73.
It offers a triple threat: You can see it coming from a long way off. It has a steep ascent and descent. And it towers frighteningly high above the water. Those are the things gephyrophobes fear most.
The Rainbow Bridge is scary enough today with its two lanes of one-way southbound traffic (the nearby Veterans' Memorial Bridge, built in 1991, now carries northbound traffic). But it used to be much worse. For many decades, drivers had to endure two narrow lanes carrying both cars and eighteen-wheelers in both directions. When you got close to the top of the bridge, all you could see was sky during the day and stars at night. You simply had to trust that the roadway would be waiting for you once you crested the summit. That was enough to make some people take a 30-mile (48 km) detour just to avoid the stress.
It seems strange that a bridge with such a pretty name can cause so much fear. Local driving instructors often had students drive across the bridge on their first day of lessons. They believed that the best way to overcome fear was to face it—directly and immediately.
When it was completed in 1938, it was the tallest bridge in Texas and among the tallest in America, essentially as high as a 20-story building. It was originally called the Neches River Bridge or the Port Arthur-Orange Bridge.
I once believed that the name Rainbow Bridge came from Norse mythology, in which a rainbow bridge called Bifrost connects heaven and earth. But no. In 1957, the North Port Arthur Lions Club held a naming contest, and six-year-old Christy McClintock submitted the winning entry. She said the bridge looked like a mechanical rainbow. And it really does. If you are ever there around sunset and see it illuminated in the pink hues of evening, it truly looks like a steel rainbow. Christy received a $50 savings bond as her prize. That does not sound like much today, but in 1957 it could buy you 200 Whataburger hamburgers.
Why was the bridge built so high, with 177 feet of vertical clearance in that delta region? Well, there was an important ship channel there, and they wanted the tallest ship in the Navy at the time, the USS Patoka, to be able to pass easily beneath it while towing an airship.
The Rainbow Bridge was more than an engineering marvel. It was also a magnet for teenagers at night, when local high school students would climb up onto the catwalks. One of those students, as the story goes, would sit high above the moonlit waters of the Neches River and sing in her passionately raw style. You have surely heard of her. Janis Joplin? Her biographer Myra Friedman said that she sang there beneath the vast Texas sky and would "scorch the stars" (set the stars ablaze). But that is another story entirely. I am giving you only the abridged version.
The Navy's tallest ship never sailed beneath the Rainbow Bridge. What a shame. It was a bit like a bride planning the perfect wedding, only for the groom not to show up.
