 Julia Elizabeth Christiansen, daughter of Danish immigrants Hamond and Elizabeth Christiansen, was born March 30, 1856, in Manti, Sanpete County, Utah, northeast of Gunnison.She moved to Portland in 1881, and in 1883 married Lee Hoffman (1850–1895), a Portland builder.In 1887, when he completed the Morrison Bridge, the first bridge across the Willamette River, Julia Christiansen Hoffman was "the first person to 'walk across the Willamette' ".