Built between the Puget Sound and Lake Washington, Seattle is a city of bridges. But the Montlake Bridge, with its Gothic-style architecture, has been unique since the beginning.

About 51,000 cars cross the bridge daily, and it opens about 2,500 times a year, and up to 400 times a month during the busy months of summer.

According to a Seattle Times article from January 1924, the bridge was supposed to be “the most imposing of the city’s bridges.”

“It was built in 1925 and was designed to match the Gothic architecture of the UW,” explained Eric Sniezak, a primary bridge inspector for the Washington State Department of Transportation.

Because of its location and architecture, the bridge is sometimes referred to as the “Gateway to the University of Washington.”

The Montlake Bridge is one of Seattle’s six bascule-lift bridges based off of a Chicago design. Bascule-lift bridges have counterweights that pull the bridge up.

What makes this bridge unique to the others is its use of concrete brackets that support trunnions, a pivoting mechanism.

This chane in design was used to avoid lawsuits from the Strauss Bascule Bridge Company of Chicago, that had paved the way in bascule-lift bridges. The company had just realized Seattle was building the same bridges and sued the city for its infringement on patented rights, despite the design alteration.

After years of delay due to lawsuits, the Montlake Bridge opened in June 1925.

The bridge is now on the National Register of Historic Places.

Bridge openings cause delays in traffic around the UW.

“From the time we clear the bridge of cars and pedestrians to the time we allow them back on, it’ll take about seven minutes at the fastest,” Sniezak said.

Bill Dickinson, one of the five Montlake Bridge operators, has worked in the drawbridge tower for about 12 years.

“You have to enjoy being a solitary person working alone,” Dickinson said.

“We have very few openings [during the winter],” he said. “Summer times, of course, are a lot busier because of the weather. And weekends are busier than weekdays.”

Monday through Friday, Dickinson commutes from Bothell for his 6 a.m. to 2 p.m. shift. During his 8-hour shift, he has a lot of spare time.

“I do a lot of crossword puzzles and read the newspaper,” he said. “I read both The Times and P-I every day.”

For Dickinson, this job is a relaxing change from his past. He grew up in the Greenlake area, and was an active child.

“We were always in the streets playing baseball and football and in the backyard playing basketball,” Dickinson said. “Kids don’t do that anymore, do they?”

Dickinson attended Shoreline Community College and then transferred to the UW, where he was a student from 1973-1975, majoring in natural sciences with a minor in elementary education.

He wanted to be an elementary school teacher with an emphasis in science, working in a classroom of 35 kids.

However, when he finished school, Seattle voters had just turned down a school levy.

“A lot of qualified teachers were out of a job. So when the time came to hire teachers, I figured they’d probably want to hire experienced teachers rather than someone right out of school,” Dickinson said. “So I decided it was time to go find a different job.”

He said he probably would have enjoyed being a schoolteacher, being able to make things interesting and relevant to children. However, he has no regrets, and he put that dream away years ago.

Since graduating, he’s worked for eight or nine different businesses, ranging from a roofing company to a building materials company to Sears.

Before finding this operating job in 1996, Dickinson owned a gardening business for five years.

“I really enjoyed [the gardening business] until I realized I had to do it for a living rather than a hobby. Doing it to pay for rent ruined that hobby,” he said.

He also wanted a consistent, year-round job. At the time, the state was building a new bridge at First Avenue South and needed more bridge tenders.

“So I applied for the job and was accepted,” he said.

Now, with both of his children grown up, Dickinson enjoys the laid-back pace of his current job.

“A lot of people wouldn’t like this job because it’s not very active,” he said. “There’s not a lot to do every day and people who are type-A personalities would probably go stir crazy up here.”

Dickinson laughed, commenting how bipolar his work is with his past dream of becoming a schoolteacher. But he repeated how much he enjoyed his job.

“I’ll work here until I’m no longer able to climb the stairs — probably another 10 years.”

[Reach contributing writer Joy Yagi at development@thedaily.washington.edu.]