(Photos courtesy of Washington State Archives.)

Following Thursday’s collapse of the Interstate 5 bridge over the Skagit River near Mount Vernon just before the Memorial Day weekend, our State Archives staff quickly found some classic photos of the bridge from Archives’ Washington State Department of Transportation collection. The top photo, taken in 1960, shows an aerial view of the bridge from the west. The middle photo is taken from the south. Note how little development there was near either end of the span back then. The bottom image, taken in 1967, features four views of the bridge.