Fremont has a limited amount of written history. Instead, we specialize in a strong oral tradition of stories passed from person to person and viewpoint to viewpoint. As the source changes, the story changes and legends grow. In tracking down the origin of the unusual color scheme of the Fremont Bridge, the only orange and blue bridge I know, I reconstructed the story from the scattered facts as best as I could.

As one of four bridges built to span the new Lake Washington Ship Canal at the beginning of the 20th Century, the Fremont Bridge stands as the only one not painted a nice dull color - army green or gray. In Washington State I have seen some bridges painted a lovely cornflower blue along Stevens Pass. Cobalt blue and tangerine orange, our Bridge's colors, hardly merit the description 'lovely'. However, I believe only this is the place in the universe where two such divergent colors can decorate a structure in harmony.

The origin of the orange color lay in legend. As one story goes, in 1972 City painters applied an orange primer coat then left when funds ran out or the weather turned. By the time they resumed the job, to do the green overcoat, the neighborhood had grown accustomed to the outrageous color - and fought to keep it. Against the wishes of the City, the color stayed. At that time orange paint pigment was unstable and as City officials predicted, it faded terribly into a dusty, jaundiced pinkish hue.

In 1985, the City came back ready to work with us. They needed to paint the Bridge again, but this time they wanted a stable, lead-free paint. That left out orange. Carla Main, our Neighborhood Service Center representative, organized a series of community meetings for input. The City offered army green, brown, and even brick red. Armin Stephanian, unofficial Mayor of Fremont, refused to consider it. He ran a campaign for orange.

Irene Ingalls (now Ingalls-Turner) owned Frame-Up and Eclectic Designs, a business in Downtown Fremont, and lived above the Red Door Ale House. She created murals and large paintings, including one in the Longshoreman's Daughter restaurant. She attended the community meetings and recalls Armin wearing overalls splattered with orange paint and orange buttons. She recalls him stomping out of meetings, furious that any other color would be considered. Among the majority of the attendees, the predominant atmosphere sounded more like "let's compromise".

Finally, leading Fremonsters called for an election. Held at the Fremont Public Association Street Fair, a booth listed the colors offered plus orange to an open vote. Blue won. While acknowledging the City's objective - to avoid orange - this also exerted our will by the choice of an eccentric color. We selected a vivid, dark blue that doesn't blend in or avoid notice.

Many people still felt unhappy. Sometimes majority rule doesn't work. Carla suggested Irene look at the choices. She took pictures, studied the bridge in both closed and open positions, and examined the different surfaces of the intricate structure. Then Irene designed a paint plan. It stands as a credit to her talent as an artist that she could take such conflicting colors and make them work together. According to her, "the City loved it!" Using very little orange and the blue selected by voters, the Bridge was painted. And when raised, many times a day for boats to enter and exit Lake Union, the most visible color of our bascule bridge remains orange.

Armin has moved away, although he still holds the title as Fremont's one and only Mayor, and Carla works elsewhere in the city. Only Irene has remained, having sold Frame-Up and moved beneath the Aurora Bridge, near the Fremont Troll. When the City re-painted our Bridge in 1997, most of the neighborhood took it for granted that the colors would stay as they had "always been", blue and orange. And Irene watched to see that the painters used her plan.

As the story slips into history, and legend, it may be hard some day to believe the Bridge colors ever stood in doubt; or to remember how such strange colors present an outrageous homage to compromise. Irene insists that a look back at 29 years of Fair posters, and other Fremont history, reveals a preponderance of orange and blue, long before our Bridge took those colors. Perhaps hard work and creative thinking didn't result in the unique color scheme. Perhaps it was just always meant to be.