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The Golden Gate Bridge is a suspension bridge spanning the Golden Gate, the opening of the San Francisco Bay into the Pacific Ocean. As part of both U.S. Route 101 and California State Route 1, the structure links the city of San Francisco, on the northern tip of the San Francisco Peninsula, to Marin County. It is one of the most internationally recognized symbols of San Francisco, California, and of the United States. It has been declared one of the modern Wonders of the World by the American Society of Civil Engineers. The Frommers travel guide considers the Golden Gate Bridge "possibly the most beautiful, certainly the most
photographed, bridge in the world". [6]
Hide History
Ferry service
Golden Gate with Fort Point in foreground, c. 1891
Before the bridge was built, the only practical short route between San Francisco and what is now Marin County was by boat across a section of San Francisco Bay. Ferry service began as early as 1820, with regularly scheduled service beginning in the 1840s for purposes of transporting water to San
Francisco. [7] The Sausalito Land and Ferry Company service, launched in 1867, eventually became the Golden Gate Ferry Company, a Southern Pacific Railroad subsidiary, the largest ferry operation in
the world by the late 1920s. [7][8] Once for railroad passengers and customers only, Southern Pacific's automobile ferries became very profitable and
important to the regional economy. [9] The ferry crossing between the Hyde Street Pier in San Francisco and Sausalito in Marin County took approximately 20 minutes and cost US$1.00 per vehicle, a price later reduced to compete with the
new bridge. [10] The trip from the San Francisco Ferry Building took 27 minutes.
Many wanted to build a bridge to connect San Francisco to Marin County. San Francisco was the largest American city still served primarily by ferry boats. Because it did not have a permanent link with communities around the bay, the city's growth rate
was below the national average. [11] Many experts said that a bridge couldn’t be built across the 6,700 ft (2,042 m) strait. It had strong, swirling tides and currents, with water 500 ft (150 m) in depth at the center of the channel, and frequent strong winds. Experts said that ferocious winds and blinding fogs would prevent construction and
operation. [11]
Conception
Although the idea of a bridge spanning the Golden Gate was not new, the proposal that eventually took hold was made in a 1916 San Francisco Bulletin article by former engineering student James
Wilkins. [12] San Francisco's City Engineer estimated the cost at $100 million, impractical for the time, and fielded the question to bridge engineers of
whether it could be built for less. [7] One who responded, Joseph Strauss, was an ambitious but dreamy engineer and poet who had, for his graduate thesis, designed a 55-mile (89 km) long
railroad bridge across the Bering Strait. [13] At the time, Strauss had completed some 400 drawbridges—most of which were inland—and
nothing on the scale of the new project. [3] Strauss's
initial drawings [12] were for a massive cantilever on each side of the strait, connected by a central suspension segment, which Strauss promised could
be built for $17 million. [7]
Local authorities agreed to proceed only on the assurance that Strauss alter the design and accept input from several consulting project
experts. [citation needed] A suspension-bridge design was considered the most practical, because of
recent advances in metallurgy. [7]
Strauss spent more than a decade drumming up
support in Northern California. [14] The bridge faced opposition, including litigation, from many sources. The Department of War was concerned that the bridge would interfere with ship traffic; the navy feared that a ship collision or sabotage to the bridge could block the entrance to one of its main harbors. Unions demanded guarantees that local workers would be favored for construction jobs. Southern Pacific Railroad, one of the most powerful business interests in California, opposed the bridge as competition to its ferry fleet and filed a lawsuit against the project, leading to a mass boycott of the
ferry service. [7] In May 1924, Colonel Herbert Deakyne held the second hearing on the Bridge on behalf of the Secretary of War in a request to use Federal land for construction. Deakyne, on behalf of the Secretary of War, approved the transfer of land needed for the bridge structure and leading roads to the "Bridging the Golden Gate Association" and both San Francisco County and Marin County, pending
further bridge plans by Strauss. [15] Another ally was the fledgling automobile industry, which supported the development of roads and bridges to increase
demand for automobiles. [10]
The bridge's name was first used when the project was initially discussed in 1917 by M.M. O'Shaughnessy, city engineer of San Francisco, and Strauss. The name became official with the passage of the Golden Gate Bridge and Highway District Act
by the state legislature in 1923. [16]
Preliminary discussions leading to the eventual building of the Golden Gate Bridge were held on January 13, 1923, at a special convention in Santa Rosa, CA. The Santa Rosa Chamber was charged with considering the necessary steps required to foster the construction of a bridge across the Golden Gate by then Santa Rosa Chamber President Frank Doyle (the street Doyle Drive leading up to the bridge is named after him). On June 12, the Santa Rosa Chamber voted to endorse the actions of the "Bridging the Golden Gate Association" by attending the meeting of the Boards of Supervisors in San Francisco on June 23 and by requesting that the Board of Supervisors of Sonoma County also attend. By 1925, the Santa Rosa Chamber had assumed responsibility for circulating bridge petitions as the next step for the formation of the Golden Gate
Bridge. [citation needed]
Design
South tower seen from walkway
Strauss was chief engineer in charge of overall
design and construction of the bridge project. [11]
However, because he had little understanding or
experience with cable-suspension designs, [17]
responsibility for much of the engineering and architecture fell on other experts. Strauss' initial design proposal (two double cantilever spans linked by a central suspension segment) was unacceptable from a visual standpoint. The final graceful suspension design was conceived and championed by New York’s Manhattan Bridge designer Leon
Moisseiff. [18]
Irving Morrow, a relatively unknown residential architect, designed the overall shape of the bridge towers, the lighting scheme, and Art Deco elements such as the streetlights, railing, and walkways. The famous International Orange color was originally used as a sealant for the bridge. Many locals persuaded Morrow to paint the bridge in the vibrant orange color instead of the standard silver or gray,
and the color has been kept ever since. [19] The US Navy had wanted it to be painted with black and yellow stripes to ensure visibility by passing
ships. [11]
Senior engineer Charles Alton Ellis, collaborating remotely with Moisseiff, was the principal engineer
of the project. [20] Moisseiff produced the basic structural design, introducing his "deflection theory" by which a thin, flexible roadway would flex in the wind, greatly reducing stress by transmitting forces
via suspension cables to the bridge towers. [20]
Although the Golden Gate Bridge design has proved sound, a later Moisseiff design, the original Tacoma Narrows Bridge, collapsed in a strong windstorm soon after it was completed, because of an
unexpected aeroelastic flutter. [21]
Ellis was a Greek scholar and mathematician who at one time was a University of Illinois professor of engineering despite having no engineering degree (he eventually earned a degree in civil engineering from University of Illinois prior to designing the Golden Gate Bridge and spent the last twelve years of his career as a professor at Purdue University). He became an expert in structural design, writingthe
standard textbook of the time. [22] Ellis did much of the technical and theoretical work that built the bridge, but he received none of the credit in his lifetime. In November 1931, Strauss fired Ellis and replaced him with a former subordinate, Clifford Paine, ostensibly for wasting too much money
sending telegrams back and forth to Moisseiff. [22]
Ellis, obsessed with the project and unable to find work elsewhere during the Depression, continued working 70 hours per week on an unpaid basis, eventually turning in ten volumes of hand
calculations. [22]
With an eye toward self-promotion and posterity, Strauss downplayed the contributions of his collaborators who, despite receiving little
recognition or compensation, [17] are largely responsible for the final form of the bridge. He succeeded in having himself credited as the person most responsible for the design and vision of the
bridge. [22] Only much later were the contributions of the others on the design team properly
appreciated. [22] In May 2007, the Golden Gate Bridge District issued a formal report on 70 years of stewardship of the famous bridge and decided to give Ellis major credit for the design of the bridge.
Finance
The Golden Gate Bridge and Highway District, authorized by an act of the California Legislature, was incorporated in 1928 as the official entityto design, construct, and finance the Golden Gate
Bridge. [11] However, after the Wall Street Crashof 1929, the District was unable to raise the construction funds, so it lobbied for a $30 million bond measure. The bonds were approved in
November 1930, [13] by votes in the counties
affected by the bridge. [23] The construction budget at the time of approval was $27 million. However, the District was unable to sell the bonds until 1932, when Amadeo Giannini, the founder of San Francisco–based Bank of America, agreed on behalf of his bank to buy the entire issue in order to help
the local economy. [7]
Construction
Construction began on January 5, 1933. [7] The
project cost more than $35 million. [24] The Golden Gate Bridge construction project was carried out by the McClintic-Marshall Construction Co., a subsidiary of Bethlehem Steel Corporation, founded by Howard H. McClintic and Charles D. Marshall, both of Lehigh University.
Strauss remained head of the project, overseeing day-to-day construction and making some groundbreaking contributions. A graduate of the University of Cincinnati, he placed a brick from his alma mater's demolished McMicken Hall in the south anchorage before the concrete was poured. He innovated the use of movable safety netting beneath the construction site, which saved the lives of many otherwise-unprotected steelworkers. Of eleven men killed from falls during construction, ten were killed (when the bridge was near completion) when the net failed under the stress of a scaffold
that had fallen. [25] Nineteen others who were saved by the net over the course of construction became proud members of the (informal) Half Way to Hell
Club. [26]
The project was finished by April 1937, $1.3 million
under budget. [7]
Opening festivities and 50th anniversary
A pedestrian poses at the old railing on opening day, 1937.
Opening of the Golden Gate Bridge
The bridge-opening celebration began on May 27, 1937 and lasted for one week. The day before vehicle traffic was allowed, 200,000 people crossed
by foot and roller skate. [7] On opening day, Mayor Angelo Rossi and other officials rode the ferry to Marin, then crossed the bridge in a motorcade past three ceremonial "barriers", the last a blockade of beauty queens who required Joseph Strauss to present the bridge to the Highway District before allowing him to pass. An official song, "There's a Silver Moon on the Golden Gate", was chosen to commemorate the event. Strauss wrote a poem that is now on the Golden Gate Bridge entitled "The Mighty Task is Done." The next day, President Roosevelt pushed a button in Washington, D.C. signaling the official start of vehicle traffic over the Bridge at noon. When the celebration got out of hand, the SFPD had a small riot in the uptown Polk Gulch area. Weeks of civil and cultural activities called "the Fiesta" followed. A statue of Strausswas
moved in 1955 to a site near the bridge. [12]
In May 1987, as part of the 50th anniversary celebration, the Golden Gate Bridge district again closed the bridge to automobile traffic and allowed pedestrians to cross the bridge. However, this celebration attracted 750,000 to 1,000,000 people, and ineffective crowd control meant the bridge became congested with roughly 300,000 people, causing the center span of the bridge to flatten out under the weight. Although the bridge is designed to flex in that way under heavy loads, and was estimated not to have exceeded 40% of the yielding
stress of the suspension cables, [27] bridge officials have stated that uncontrolled pedestrian access is not being considered as part of the 75th anniversary
to be held Sunday, May 27, 2012
photographed, bridge in the world". [6]
Hide History
Ferry service
Golden Gate with Fort Point in foreground, c. 1891
Before the bridge was built, the only practical short route between San Francisco and what is now Marin County was by boat across a section of San Francisco Bay. Ferry service began as early as 1820, with regularly scheduled service beginning in the 1840s for purposes of transporting water to San
Francisco. [7] The Sausalito Land and Ferry Company service, launched in 1867, eventually became the Golden Gate Ferry Company, a Southern Pacific Railroad subsidiary, the largest ferry operation in
the world by the late 1920s. [7][8] Once for railroad passengers and customers only, Southern Pacific's automobile ferries became very profitable and
important to the regional economy. [9] The ferry crossing between the Hyde Street Pier in San Francisco and Sausalito in Marin County took approximately 20 minutes and cost US$1.00 per vehicle, a price later reduced to compete with the
new bridge. [10] The trip from the San Francisco Ferry Building took 27 minutes.
Many wanted to build a bridge to connect San Francisco to Marin County. San Francisco was the largest American city still served primarily by ferry boats. Because it did not have a permanent link with communities around the bay, the city's growth rate
was below the national average. [11] Many experts said that a bridge couldn’t be built across the 6,700 ft (2,042 m) strait. It had strong, swirling tides and currents, with water 500 ft (150 m) in depth at the center of the channel, and frequent strong winds. Experts said that ferocious winds and blinding fogs would prevent construction and
operation. [11]
Conception
Although the idea of a bridge spanning the Golden Gate was not new, the proposal that eventually took hold was made in a 1916 San Francisco Bulletin article by former engineering student James
Wilkins. [12] San Francisco's City Engineer estimated the cost at $100 million, impractical for the time, and fielded the question to bridge engineers of
whether it could be built for less. [7] One who responded, Joseph Strauss, was an ambitious but dreamy engineer and poet who had, for his graduate thesis, designed a 55-mile (89 km) long
railroad bridge across the Bering Strait. [13] At the time, Strauss had completed some 400 drawbridges—most of which were inland—and
nothing on the scale of the new project. [3] Strauss's
initial drawings [12] were for a massive cantilever on each side of the strait, connected by a central suspension segment, which Strauss promised could
be built for $17 million. [7]
Local authorities agreed to proceed only on the assurance that Strauss alter the design and accept input from several consulting project
experts. [citation needed] A suspension-bridge design was considered the most practical, because of
recent advances in metallurgy. [7]
Strauss spent more than a decade drumming up
support in Northern California. [14] The bridge faced opposition, including litigation, from many sources. The Department of War was concerned that the bridge would interfere with ship traffic; the navy feared that a ship collision or sabotage to the bridge could block the entrance to one of its main harbors. Unions demanded guarantees that local workers would be favored for construction jobs. Southern Pacific Railroad, one of the most powerful business interests in California, opposed the bridge as competition to its ferry fleet and filed a lawsuit against the project, leading to a mass boycott of the
ferry service. [7] In May 1924, Colonel Herbert Deakyne held the second hearing on the Bridge on behalf of the Secretary of War in a request to use Federal land for construction. Deakyne, on behalf of the Secretary of War, approved the transfer of land needed for the bridge structure and leading roads to the "Bridging the Golden Gate Association" and both San Francisco County and Marin County, pending
further bridge plans by Strauss. [15] Another ally was the fledgling automobile industry, which supported the development of roads and bridges to increase
demand for automobiles. [10]
The bridge's name was first used when the project was initially discussed in 1917 by M.M. O'Shaughnessy, city engineer of San Francisco, and Strauss. The name became official with the passage of the Golden Gate Bridge and Highway District Act
by the state legislature in 1923. [16]
Preliminary discussions leading to the eventual building of the Golden Gate Bridge were held on January 13, 1923, at a special convention in Santa Rosa, CA. The Santa Rosa Chamber was charged with considering the necessary steps required to foster the construction of a bridge across the Golden Gate by then Santa Rosa Chamber President Frank Doyle (the street Doyle Drive leading up to the bridge is named after him). On June 12, the Santa Rosa Chamber voted to endorse the actions of the "Bridging the Golden Gate Association" by attending the meeting of the Boards of Supervisors in San Francisco on June 23 and by requesting that the Board of Supervisors of Sonoma County also attend. By 1925, the Santa Rosa Chamber had assumed responsibility for circulating bridge petitions as the next step for the formation of the Golden Gate
Bridge. [citation needed]
Design
South tower seen from walkway
Strauss was chief engineer in charge of overall
design and construction of the bridge project. [11]
However, because he had little understanding or
experience with cable-suspension designs, [17]
responsibility for much of the engineering and architecture fell on other experts. Strauss' initial design proposal (two double cantilever spans linked by a central suspension segment) was unacceptable from a visual standpoint. The final graceful suspension design was conceived and championed by New York’s Manhattan Bridge designer Leon
Moisseiff. [18]
Irving Morrow, a relatively unknown residential architect, designed the overall shape of the bridge towers, the lighting scheme, and Art Deco elements such as the streetlights, railing, and walkways. The famous International Orange color was originally used as a sealant for the bridge. Many locals persuaded Morrow to paint the bridge in the vibrant orange color instead of the standard silver or gray,
and the color has been kept ever since. [19] The US Navy had wanted it to be painted with black and yellow stripes to ensure visibility by passing
ships. [11]
Senior engineer Charles Alton Ellis, collaborating remotely with Moisseiff, was the principal engineer
of the project. [20] Moisseiff produced the basic structural design, introducing his "deflection theory" by which a thin, flexible roadway would flex in the wind, greatly reducing stress by transmitting forces
via suspension cables to the bridge towers. [20]
Although the Golden Gate Bridge design has proved sound, a later Moisseiff design, the original Tacoma Narrows Bridge, collapsed in a strong windstorm soon after it was completed, because of an
unexpected aeroelastic flutter. [21]
Ellis was a Greek scholar and mathematician who at one time was a University of Illinois professor of engineering despite having no engineering degree (he eventually earned a degree in civil engineering from University of Illinois prior to designing the Golden Gate Bridge and spent the last twelve years of his career as a professor at Purdue University). He became an expert in structural design, writingthe
standard textbook of the time. [22] Ellis did much of the technical and theoretical work that built the bridge, but he received none of the credit in his lifetime. In November 1931, Strauss fired Ellis and replaced him with a former subordinate, Clifford Paine, ostensibly for wasting too much money
sending telegrams back and forth to Moisseiff. [22]
Ellis, obsessed with the project and unable to find work elsewhere during the Depression, continued working 70 hours per week on an unpaid basis, eventually turning in ten volumes of hand
calculations. [22]
With an eye toward self-promotion and posterity, Strauss downplayed the contributions of his collaborators who, despite receiving little
recognition or compensation, [17] are largely responsible for the final form of the bridge. He succeeded in having himself credited as the person most responsible for the design and vision of the
bridge. [22] Only much later were the contributions of the others on the design team properly
appreciated. [22] In May 2007, the Golden Gate Bridge District issued a formal report on 70 years of stewardship of the famous bridge and decided to give Ellis major credit for the design of the bridge.
Finance
The Golden Gate Bridge and Highway District, authorized by an act of the California Legislature, was incorporated in 1928 as the official entityto design, construct, and finance the Golden Gate
Bridge. [11] However, after the Wall Street Crashof 1929, the District was unable to raise the construction funds, so it lobbied for a $30 million bond measure. The bonds were approved in
November 1930, [13] by votes in the counties
affected by the bridge. [23] The construction budget at the time of approval was $27 million. However, the District was unable to sell the bonds until 1932, when Amadeo Giannini, the founder of San Francisco–based Bank of America, agreed on behalf of his bank to buy the entire issue in order to help
the local economy. [7]
Construction
Construction began on January 5, 1933. [7] The
project cost more than $35 million. [24] The Golden Gate Bridge construction project was carried out by the McClintic-Marshall Construction Co., a subsidiary of Bethlehem Steel Corporation, founded by Howard H. McClintic and Charles D. Marshall, both of Lehigh University.
Strauss remained head of the project, overseeing day-to-day construction and making some groundbreaking contributions. A graduate of the University of Cincinnati, he placed a brick from his alma mater's demolished McMicken Hall in the south anchorage before the concrete was poured. He innovated the use of movable safety netting beneath the construction site, which saved the lives of many otherwise-unprotected steelworkers. Of eleven men killed from falls during construction, ten were killed (when the bridge was near completion) when the net failed under the stress of a scaffold
that had fallen. [25] Nineteen others who were saved by the net over the course of construction became proud members of the (informal) Half Way to Hell
Club. [26]
The project was finished by April 1937, $1.3 million
under budget. [7]
Opening festivities and 50th anniversary
A pedestrian poses at the old railing on opening day, 1937.
Opening of the Golden Gate Bridge
The bridge-opening celebration began on May 27, 1937 and lasted for one week. The day before vehicle traffic was allowed, 200,000 people crossed
by foot and roller skate. [7] On opening day, Mayor Angelo Rossi and other officials rode the ferry to Marin, then crossed the bridge in a motorcade past three ceremonial "barriers", the last a blockade of beauty queens who required Joseph Strauss to present the bridge to the Highway District before allowing him to pass. An official song, "There's a Silver Moon on the Golden Gate", was chosen to commemorate the event. Strauss wrote a poem that is now on the Golden Gate Bridge entitled "The Mighty Task is Done." The next day, President Roosevelt pushed a button in Washington, D.C. signaling the official start of vehicle traffic over the Bridge at noon. When the celebration got out of hand, the SFPD had a small riot in the uptown Polk Gulch area. Weeks of civil and cultural activities called "the Fiesta" followed. A statue of Strausswas
moved in 1955 to a site near the bridge. [12]
In May 1987, as part of the 50th anniversary celebration, the Golden Gate Bridge district again closed the bridge to automobile traffic and allowed pedestrians to cross the bridge. However, this celebration attracted 750,000 to 1,000,000 people, and ineffective crowd control meant the bridge became congested with roughly 300,000 people, causing the center span of the bridge to flatten out under the weight. Although the bridge is designed to flex in that way under heavy loads, and was estimated not to have exceeded 40% of the yielding
stress of the suspension cables, [27] bridge officials have stated that uncontrolled pedestrian access is not being considered as part of the 75th anniversary
to be held Sunday, May 27, 2012
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