Tekoa, Washington — Trestle Outlived the Railroad

Tekoa is a small Palouse town with a bridge sized for a much larger transportation era.

Several rail lines once served the community near the Idaho line, but the most conspicuous survivor is the Milwaukee Road trestle crossing Hangman Creek. The enormous steel structure was built for trains moving across the inland Northwest.

The trains stopped. The bridge did not. Its corridor became part of the Palouse to Cascades State Park Trail, and rehabilitation turned railroad engineering into a viewpoint for cyclists and hikers.

Tekoa became smaller as transportation and farm economics changed, while surrounding grain country remained productive. The result is an excellent mismatch: very small town, very large bridge.