Multnomah County OR Archives Biographies.....Swigert, Charles F. 1862 - 
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Ila Wakley iwakley@msn.com January 11, 2011, 7:22 pm

Source: History of the Columbia River Valley From The Dalles to the Sea, Vol. III, Published 1928, Pages 618 - 619
Author: The S. J. Clarke Publishing Company

     CHARLES F. SWIGERT.  For more than four decades Charles F. Swigert,
president of the Pacific Bridge Company, has been numbered among the
enterprising, progressive and successful business men of Portland, accounted an
active factor in the industrial development and civic progress of this city. Mr.
Swigert was born in Ohio in 1862 and was there reared and educated. In 1880 he
came west, locating first in California, where he went to work for the Pacific
Bridge Company, which was established in that state in 1869 by W. H. and C. H.
Gorrill. The company first opened an office in Portland in 1880, at which time
it began the construction of the first Morrison street bridge, and from that
time on has done a large part of the bridge construction work in Oregon. It has
since been made an Oregon corporation and does general contracting, in addition
to bridge work. This company did the substructure work on the Interstate bridge
between Portland and Vancouver, had the contract for all of the work on the
Burnside bridge, the substructure work on the Ross Island bridge, and is now
doing all the harbor wall and backfilling for the big water front project in
Portland. The company erects all kinds of steel work, but does not fabricate the
steel. It maintains a corps of able engineers and does designing when requested.

     In 1881 Mr. Swigert came to Portland and in the following year took charge
of the company office. In 1886 he became financially interested in the Pacific
Bridge Company, he and H. C. Campbell buying the controlling interest, and in
the late '90s Mr. Swigert became president of the company, which position he has
held to the the present time. Mr. Swigert has also been financially interested
in other local enterprises of importance. In 1887 he and Mr. Campbell laid out
and built the City and Suburban railway, which they successfully operated until
1905, when it was acquired by the Portland Electric Power Company and at which
time it comprised eighty miles of single track. Mr. Swigert also, in association
with others, helped to build the Lyle and Goldendale Railroad, which is now a
part of the Northern Pacific system. Mr. Swigert also became president of the
Electric Steel Foundry Company, which was organized in 1913. In 1904 he became
financially interested in the Willamette Iron and Steel Works, and is now
chairman of its board of directors. The former company is now an important local
industry, manufacturing electric steel castings, with an average annual
production of about five hundred tons, and employing one hundred and fifty men.
During the late war Mr. Swigert was manager of the Foundation Company, which
built in Portland twenty wooden ships for the French government.

     In 1888, in Portland, Mr. Swigert was united in marriage to Miss Rena
Goodnough, a daughter of Ira and Nancy (Kelton) Goodnough, of an old and well
known pioneer family, and to them have been born three children, namely: C. F.,
Jr., who is vice president and manager of the Electric Steel Foundry Company; E.
G., sales manager for that company, who is married and has two children, Nannie
and Ernest G., Jr.; and W. G., a director of the Pacific Bridge Company, who is
married and has three children, Phyllis, W. G., Jr., and Juliette.

     Mr. Swigert is a Mason, and belongs to the Waverly Country Club, the
Arlington Club, the City Club and the Chamber of Commerce. He is also a member
of the American Society of Civil Engineers and the Society of Military
Engineers. Some idea of the close relations Mr. Swigert has borne to the
development of the section of country in which he lives may be gleaned from the
statement that his company built the first bridge across the Willamette river at
Portland, the first suburban steam motor line, the first electric line and the
first electric steel foundry, and during all the years of his residence here he
has shown an earnest interest in the welfare of the community and a readiness to
cooperate to the fullest extent in the promotion of measures and enterprises
having for their object the material, civic or moral betterment of the city. He
is straightforward, holds definite and well defined views on questions relating
to the public welfare, and in his social relations is cordial and unaffected,
being held in high regard by all who know him.

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