Quick Take:

Nearly 80 years after Lane County bulldozed a historically Black community for a bridge project, a life-size bronze sculpture will be placed in Alton Baker Park to honor the families who lived there.

A previous version of this story incorrectly stated the name of a boy pictured and relationship to William Johnson Jr. The person included in the image is Johnson’s father, William Johnson Sr.

William “Billy” Johnson Jr. pointed to a black-and-white photograph of a Black child, about five or six, hands in his pockets.

“That’s my father,” Johnson said of the boy, who stood beside nine other children around a water pump in Ferry Street Village, a mostly-Black settlement just outside Eugene’s city limits in what is now known as Alton Baker Park.

The photograph, according to the Museum of Natural and Cultural History, was dated 1949, the same year Lane County Commissioners ordered the settlement to be razed and its residents removed in order to build an upgraded Ferry Street Bridge. 

William “Billy” Johnson Jr.’s father, William Johnson Sr. (left) stands next to family members and other residents of the Across the Bridge settlement, 1949. Credit: Image courtesy of the City of Eugene and Greg Black, Museum of Natural and Cultural History

In the decades since, Lane County’s first Black settlement, also referred to by residents as “Across the Bridge,” disappeared from history. On Friday, Feb. 13, community members, elected officials and local organizations unveiled a sculpture created to memorialize the historic neighborhood.

The monument, sculpted by Percy Appau, a Black artist and designer in Eugene, depicts an Across the Bridge family: A man, a woman and three children. Aside from the sleeping baby, each person has their head held high. They wear suits and dresses and jewelry, and their natural hair is on proud display. None of them are a specific person, yet they represent every family that lived in the community, including Johnson’s.

“We love that this history is not lost, and we’re excited that it’s being shared with more people,” said Rosita Johnson, Billy Johnson’s sister, who also attended Tuesday’s viewing along with close to 20 other descendants of Across the Bridge.

The unfinished sculpture weighs 100 pounds now, but it will gain another 900 once it’s cast with molten bronze by Reinmuth Bronze Foundry, said Talicia Brown, executive director of the Black Cultural Initiative. 

Its final home will be at Alton Baker Park, and Brown said there are plans to hold a ceremony for its installation in September. It won’t be placed directly where Across the Bridge once stood, but it will be in a high-traffic area just south of the former settlement.

Black Cultural Initiative Executive Director Talicia Brown (left) and Rosita Johnson, a descendant of Across the Bridge residents, stand next to a monument created to honor families like hers. Friday, Feb. 13, 2026. Credit: Taylor Goebel / Lookout Eugene-Springfield

Brown said the sculpture serves as a “visible acknowledgment” of the community and the history of systemic exclusion in Eugene and Oregon. When Across the Bridge was formed, racially restrictive housing covenants were used to exclude Black people from living in city limits, until the Supreme Court ruled in 1948 they could not legally be enforced. The City of Eugene reported in 2020 that racial covenants “can still be found on existing deeds of many homes today, in Eugene and across Oregon.”

About 100 people lived in the Across the Bridge settlement, often disparaged as “Tent City” due to its poor living conditions. Residents lived in tents and makeshift homes that were ill-equipped for frequent flooding and harsh weather. They had no running water or waste facilities.

Still, it was a community, a place where people lived and went to church. The Johnson family birthed triplets there – Terry, Jerry and Perry, The Register-Guard reported in 1949. The babies were born about a month before a bulldozer leveled the village Aug. 24, 1949.

A newspaper clipping from The Register-Guard dated Dec. 13, 1948, reports flooding damage from the Willamette River on Ferry Street Village, where residents often lived in tents and makeshift homes. Credit: Image courtesy of Lane County History Museum
Founding ladies of the Ferry Street Chapel in the Across the Bridge community, 1948. Credit: Image courtesy of the City of Eugene and Greg Black, Museum of Natural and Cultural History

Lane County issued notices to vacate the property about six months before the demolition, but some residents outside that area were only given 10 days’ notice through a court order.

Many of the displaced residents once again ended up in areas outside of city limits, miles from Across the Bridge. Their new homes were “not exactly an improvement in the living conditions,” according to a report from the City of Eugene’s Planning Division. “For example, one relocation site was prone to flooding and another lacked running water.”

“I never had to live how they did,” Rosita Johnson said of her grandparents, tears in her eyes. “I’m just glad that they were able to move forward and find the strength to keep persevering and to settle some place that they could call a home, and continue to raise their kids.” 

Now, families like the Johnsons will have a permanent place to remember the strength of their loved ones.

The location of the Across the Bridge monument was intentional, according to Brown.

“It’s specifically a public space,” she said. “We don’t want to take history that was hidden for so long and make it hidden again.”

The Across the Bridge Monument represents the families who lived in Ferry Street Village, a Black settlement that existed for about a decade before Lane County demolished it in 1949 for a bridge construction project. Friday, Feb. 13, 2026. Credit: Taylor Goebel / Lookout Eugene-Springfield

Taylor Goebel covers Lane County's food and drink scene. She has nearly a decade of experience in multimedia journalism, having reported across the Mid-Atlantic on dining, food systems, education, healthcare, local elections, labor and business. She was most recently a food reporter in Washington state, where she documented a fourth-generation fishing family, covered a David vs. Goliath conflict between a national coffee chain and a small Turkish cafe, and had many culinary firsts, from ensaymadas and gilgeori (Korean street) toast to morels and black cod.