Given a year to complete the task, they instead finished in just over six months, having spun more than 25, individual wires into each 7,foot cable. Despite the ongoing hazardous conditions faced by the crew, the construction produced just one casualty through four years. However, the near-spotless safety record was blemished when a scaffold fell and tore through the net in February , resulting in the deaths of 10 workers.
The roadway was completed on April 19, , and the bridge officially opened to pedestrians on May 27 of that year. The following day, President Franklin D.
Roosevelt announced that the bridge was open to cars and the rest of the world via White House telegraph. A marvel of modern engineering, the Golden Gate Bridge is 1. Its 4,foot main span between the two towers was the longest for a suspension bridge until , while its foot towers made it the tallest bridge of any type until The Golden Gate Bridge withstood the destructive Loma Prieta earthquake of , and was closed to traffic only three times in its first 75 years due to weather conditions.
Believed to be the most photographed bridge in the world, this landmark was named one of the seven civil engineering wonders of the United States by the American Society of Civil Engineers in But if you see something that doesn't look right, click here to contact us!
Subscribe for fascinating stories connecting the past to the present. Since , its granite towers and steel cables have offered a safe and scenic passage to millions of commuters and tourists, trains and bicycles, The 1. On January 5, , construction begins on the Golden Gate Bridge , as workers began excavating 3. Following the Gold Rush boom that began in , speculators realized the land north of San Francisco Bay would increase in value in direct proportion to its accessibility to the city.
Soon, a plan was hatched to build a bridge that would span the Golden Gate, a narrow, foot deep strait that serves as the mouth of the San Francisco Bay, connecting the San Francisco Peninsula with the southern end of Marin County.
Although the idea went back as far as , the proposal took root in A former engineering student, James Wilkins, working as a journalist with the San Francisco Bulletin, called for a suspension bridge with a center span of 3, feet, nearly twice the length of any in existence. The construction plan still faced opposition, including litigation, from many sources.
The Golden Gate Bridge officially opened on May 27, , the longest bridge span in the world at the time. The first public crossing had taken place the day before, when , people walked, ran and even roller skated over the new bridge. With its tall towers and famous trademarked "international orange" paint job, the bridge quickly became a famous American landmark, and a symbol of San Francisco.
Each cable is composed of 27, wires. If the wires were one continuous length, they could wrap around the earth over three times. Shown above is a diagram of how the 27, wires in a cable were grouped together and then tightly compressed into their final form by a hydraulic press. Traffic jams are rare on the Bridge because the Bridge District added ferry and bus transit service. I remember asking my father when I was young:. But there were other competitors, as pictured above.
There is a reason the Golden Gate Bridge is not golden: the area is not named after the bridge, the bridge is named after the area. The place where it is located is called the Golden Gate Strait. However, in Captain John C.
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