About Nutty Narrows Bridge
Longview built a suspension bridge for squirrels. Nutty Narrows Bridge stretches roughly sixty feet across Olympia Way, giving local squirrels a dedicated route over automobile traffic instead of asking them to gamble with the pavement below.
Amos Peters developed the idea after seeing squirrels killed while crossing the street between a park and an office building where people regularly fed them. The original bridge opened in 1963. Its deck was made from a retired canvas fire hose, while the small decorative truss included aluminum tubing recycled from television antennas.
The bridge has been repaired and relocated over the years, but the basic idea survived. It looks like a miniature version of a major suspension bridge scaled specifically for animals that can cross a cable without needing a bridge in the first place. Squirrels nevertheless learned to use it.
Nutty Narrows was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 2014. Longview has since installed additional squirrel crossings around town, but the original remains the landmark. Very few pieces of transportation infrastructure can list “squirrels” as their official traffic.