Burnt Bridge Creek Trail

The Hudson’s Bay Company built a simple wood bridge across this creek around the late 1830s to transport produce on ox carts. Because it was the only bridge in the area to connect between the northern prairies and Fort Vancouver it was simply called Bridge Creek.

This is very possibly the first bridge built in Washington State.

Since that time the bridge underwent a number of name changes until it burned down sometime after 1860 and though a new bridge was built the name Burnt Bridge Creek stuck. In 1897 the creek was officially named Burnt Bridge Creek by the U.

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S. Board of Geographic Names. The Burnt Bridge Creek Trail is a shared-use, paved trail that is great for walking, biking and jogging. While the full length of the trail is 8 miles it is easy to break into smaller routes with downloadable maps for western, central and eastern sections available from cityofvancouver.us. The full trail runs from Vancouver Lake at Stewart’s Glen in the Fruit Valley Neighborhood to NE 97th Ave between 18th St and NE 16th St. cityofvancouver.us (parks and trails)