History of the Golden Gate Bridge: 89 Years Old

HISTORY OF THE GOLDEN GATE BRIDGE

This week, we celebrate the 89th anniversary of the opening of the Golden Gate Bridge. On May 27, 1937, the bridge opened to traffic after more than five years of construction. I remember asking my father when I was young:

“Why isn’t the Golden Gate Bridge golden?”

He didn’t have an answer apart from his observation that it was expensive to paint.

Color of the Golden Gate Bridge

He didn’t know that the steel for the bridge, which came from Bethlehem Steel foundries in Pennsylvania and New Jersey, originally came coated with a red lead primer. Color studies by consulting architect Irving Morrow led to what’s now known as Golden Gate Bridge International Orange, a unique “red terra cotta” version of the International Orange standard.

A worker atop the Golden Gate Bridge span applies a fresh coat of paint in 1956. The bridge is named for the Golden Gate Strait, the entrance to the San Francisco Bay from the Pacific Ocean. (Photograph by David Boyer). Image: National Geographic

But there were other competitors, as pictured at the top; the U.S. Navy had wanted it painted black with yellow stripes. “Warm Grey” was a distant second choice. If you like the color, you can obtain it from Sherwin-Williams, the supplier of “Firewood” (color code SW 6328).

Name of Golden Gate Bridge

There is a reason the Golden Gate Bridge is not golden. The area is not named after the bridge; rather, the bridge is named after the area. The place where it is located is called the Golden Gate Strait. The “Golden Gate” signifies San Francisco Bay as the gateway to the goldfields where gold was discovered at Sutter’s Mill in North-central California on January 24, 1848, resulting in a gold rush in 1849 (hence the name of the San Francisco 49ers sports team).

However, in 1846, Captain John C. Frémont, American explorer and Civil War officer, allegedly coined the term – referring to the area between San Francisco and Marin County – in an analogy to the “Golden Gate of Bosporus” (Turkey) as he visualized the rich cargoes from the Orient flowing through the strait.

His US government “1842, 1843–’44 Report” and map of his exploratory expeditions to the American West guided thousands of overland immigrants to the Oregon and California regions from  1845 to 1849. He subsequently became a millionaire during the Gold Rush.

Uniqueness of the Golden Gate Bridge

The mile-long expanse is the main north-south bridge connecting San Francisco to Marin County in Northern California, along U.S. Route 101 (in some places called El Camino Real). It is the most photographed bridge in the world and, when it opened in 1937, the longest and tallest suspension bridge in the world.

History of the Construction of the Golden Gate Bridge

A bridge was proposed to replace the ferry service between San Francisco and Marin County. However, it was estimated to cost $100 million—about $2.3 billion in today’s dollars—and deemed infeasible. Joseph Strauss, an engineer and poet, proposed that it could be built for $17 million. Local city authorities approved the design, pending input from others.

It would take over a decade for Strauss to gain support and funding. Railroads opposed it as they owned the ferry concession, while the automobile industry supported it. While he was known as the chief engineer, much credit goes to Charles Alton Ellis, though his work was not honored until 2012.

Cisco and the Golden Gate Bridge

The Bay Area computer and networking company Cisco, which I used to work for, gets its name from San FranCisco and its logo from the Golden Gate Bridge.

Cisco logo history

Golden Gate Bridge Factoids

• Length: 1.7 miles, including approaches. The main suspension span (0.8 miles) is currently the world’s ninth longest.

• Height: 746 feet, about 100 feet shorter than San Francisco’s Transamerica Pyramid.

• Average daily use: 110,113 vehicles, 10,000 pedestrians, and 6,000 bicycles per day.

• Best spot for a photo: The Marin Headlands above the northern end, where the view includes San Francisco’s skyline.

• Closures: Eight total—three times for high winds, once to accommodate construction, twice for anniversary walks (in 1987 and 2012), and one each during visits of Franklin Roosevelt and Charles de Gaulle.

• Most pedestrians at one time: 300,000 during the 1987 50th anniversary walk, which flattened the roadway’s normal arc from the weight.

• Construction fatalities: Eleven. In addition, 19 workers became members of the “Halfway-to-Hell Club” when a net stopped their falls.

• Biggest myth: That it’s regularly repainted end-to-end. In fact, continuous touch-ups maintain the 83,000 tons of structural steel.

• Lucky rider: On February 22, 1985, the one billionth driver crossed the bridge. Arthur Molinari, a dentist, received a bridge-construction hard hat and a case of champagne.

• Number of Times Destroyed: Several, fictitiously, in numerous movies and TV shows, as noted below.

Golden Gate Bridge in Movies

The Golden Gate Bridge is a famous landmark in films, from 1941’s The Maltese Falcon to 1958’s Vertigo to the 1985 James Bond film A View to a Kill. A favorite motif in several of these movies is cars and buses being stranded amidst destruction:

• Superman (1978)
• The Abyss (1989)
• Fantastic Four (2005)
• X-Men: The Last Stand (2006)
• Rise of the Planet of the Apes (2011)
• Godzilla (2014).

The Future of the Golden Gate Bridge

The fact that Star Trek‘s United Federation of Planets’ Starfleet Academy is located in San Francisco—or at least will be in the 23rd century—means that the Golden Gate Bridge appears in several of the films and television shows.

Notable films:

• Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home (1986)
• Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country (1991)
• Star Trek (VII) Generations (1994)
• Star Trek (the movie reboot, 2009)
• Star Trek Into Darkness (2013)

Notable TV shows:

• Star Trek: The Next Generation
• Star Trek: Deep Space 9
• Star Trek Voyager
• Enterprise
• Picard
• Star Trek: Discovery

Indeed, a plaque on the bridge of the U.S.S. Enterprise reads that the ship, like its nautical predecessors, was constructed in the San Francisco Shipyards.

May the Golden Gate Bridge live long and prosper.

Bill Petro, your friendly neighborhood historian
billpetro.com