History

The Golden Gate Strait — named by explorer John C. Frémont in 1846 from its resemblance to the Golden Horn at Constantinople — had long been considered uncrossable by practical engineering. The powerful tidal currents, the frequent earthquakes, the persistent fog, and the depth of the water below all argued against a bridge. Joseph Strauss, who had built hundreds of smaller bridges across America, championed the crossing from 1919 onwards, assembling a coalition of Bay Area counties behind the project and lobbying for years against the objections of the Southern Pacific Railroad and the United States War Department, both of which feared that a bridge would interfere with their interests.

Construction began on January 5, 1933, at the height of the Great Depression, employing an average of one thousand workers at any given time. Strauss introduced safety innovations that were radical for the era: hard hats were required on site, and a safety net was strung below the entire length of the construction zone — at a cost of $130,000, a considerable sum in 1933. The net saved nineteen men during construction; they organised themselves as the informal “Half Way to Hell Club.” Eleven workers were killed overall, principally in a single accident in February 1937 when a scaffold fell through the net.

The bridge opened on May 27, 1937, for pedestrians only. More than 200,000 people walked across on that first day; vehicle traffic began the following morning. On opening day the bridge was briefly the longest and tallest suspension bridge in the world. It held both records until 1964, when the Verrazzano-Narrows Bridge in New York City took the length title.