1937 - Detail

May 27, 1937 - The Golden Gate Bridge opens to pedestrian traffic and one day later, after a ceremonial press of a button from Washington, D.C. by President Roosevelt, receives its first vehicles. It created a vital link between San Francisco and Marin County.

Article by Jason Donovan

In the Golden State lies a straight that connects the San Francisco area to the Pacific Ocean. For the last 10,000 years, there has been a native presence in the area of the Golden Gate Straight. For all those years, until 1937, a boat was the main way to cross the bay. On 27 May 1937, a landmark opened to traffic, the Golden Gate Bridge.

The body of water that necessitates a bridge to span its waters shows that when nature has time on its side, it can change the course of the land. Over time, during the last Ice Age, the Sacramento and San Joaquin rivers carved their way to the sea, cutting a 90-meter-deep channel through the bedrock. These powerful processes resulted in a 3-mile-long and 1-3 mile- wide straight. As with all areas in the Americas, the native population was the first to enter the area.

Before the arrival of Europeans in 1769, when Francisco de Ortega arrived, multiple Native American tribes called the area around the straight home. At the time of the Spanish arrival, the area was home to The Ohlone, or Costanoan, and Coast Miwok. The Spanish arrival brought, as it did everywhere else they arrived, death, nearly wiping out the native population. Those whose forebearers made it through the dark times proudly celebrate their heritage today.

The Spanish would continue to come to the area when on 4 August 1775 the San Carlos was the first ship to sail through the straight. By 29 June 1776, San Francisco was founded as the Mission of San Francisco of Assisi. It was part of Mexico until 9 July 1846 when the United States took control of the area. Growth in the area took off in 1848 when the California Gold Rush started at Sutter's Mill drawing hundreds of thousands of people to the soon-to-be state that would occur 2 years later in 1850.

The straight would receive the name that the future structure would take on when, in June 1848, John C. Fremont, a Captain in the U.S. Army, submitted a report to the Senate in which, inspired by the Golden Horn, the Byzantine harbor in Turkey, he became the first to call the straight the Golden Gate. The name rang true as the Golden Gate was the gateway to the lucrative trade with Asia as well as moving the gold mined as part of the Rush, which fueled the growth of the United States. Growth would drive demand for a scheduled ferry service, so in 1850, a ship named the Kangaroo provided service from San Francisco to the Oakland Estuary. The ferry business was just taking off.

The Ferry System in Use

Oakland would allow a "reliable maritime operator" a franchise two years after the Kangaroo started. By the end of the 1800s, at least 22 companies were running passenger services, and five companies catering to car owners. Half of these companies operated within the "San Francisco - Oakland corridor." Many of these ferry companies were just a part of the railroads' bottom line as they owned them. The three most prominent companies in the ferry business were, at the top with 22 ships running full-time service was, Southern Pacific Company. The second and third companies were number two, The Key System and number three, the Northwestern Railroad Company. Combined, these three businesses carried roughly 49 million passengers as of 1921. Ten years later, after multiple mergers and amalgamations, only 10 companies remained. Life was speeding up over those same years.

Over the same ten years of mergers with the ferry companies, another form of transportation proliferated throughout all parts of the country: the automobile. In 1921, there were around 9.212 million passenger vehicles and another 1.282 million commercial vehicles in the United States. At the same time, the roaring 20s were just starting, and there was an explosion of prosperity based on stock market speculation. Long before these years, a need for a bridge over the straight was recognized.

The Straight Needed a Bridge

In 1869, the first person to publicly decree a bridge was needed was an eccentric man named Joshua Norton, known to San Francisco natives as "Norton I, Emperor of the United States." 1872 was the year that the Central Pacific Railroad executive told the Marin County Board of Supervisors, located on the northern side of the straight, that his company had calculated the budget and drafted a design for a suspension bridge to carry their rail cars across the Golden Gate. In 1916, the San Francisco Call Bulletin editor, who was also a structural engineer, publicly favored a bridge. The city government of San Francisco started to investigate the possibilities and cost of a bridge. To this end, City Engineer Michael O'Shaughnessy was placed in charge of a feasibility study. By May 1920, the soundings of the channel were complete, that data was received, and O'Shaughnessy started consulting with multiple engineers. Most said the project was not feasible, and if it could be done, the cost would be upwards of $100 million, $1.62 billion as of 2025. O'Shaughnessy then reached out to three leading engineers: Joseph B. Strauss in Chicago; Fancis C. Mc Math, President of the Canadian Bridge and Iron Company in Detroit and leader in the construction of the Quebec Bridge, and Gustav Lindenthal, who engineered the Hell Gate Arch over New York East River. Of these three men, only Strauss, with 400 span designs flowing forth from his pen, stated that a span across the straight can be done for $25-$30 million ($403 to $484.5 million as of 2025).

On 28 June 1921, ... "Joseph B. Strauss, working with his staff in Chicago, develops a hybrid structure with cantilever side spans with a suspension bridge between the ends of the two cantilevers. He submits preliminary sketches to O'Shaughnessy with a cost estimate of $27 million." (Key Dates) Strauss would be granted a patent for his plan for a hybrid cantilever-suspension bridge on 24 April 1923.

7 December 1922 is the day O'Shaughnessy made Strauss's plans available to the public. In May 1923, the state government helped lay the groundwork for a bridge when the Golden Gate Bridge and Highway District Act passed the legislature. The Act directed the Association of Bridging the Gate to create a district to build the bridge. Spring of 1924 marked a significant milestone on the path to the bridge when San Francisco and Marin counties applied to the War Department, the owners of the land on both sides of the straight, for the necessary permits needed to build the bridge. During the same time the plans for the span were reviewed by the War Department.

The War Department raised concerns regarding navigation and financial inadequacies. By the end of 1924, Secretary of War, John W. Weeks issued a temporary construction permit for the Bridge. Throughout 1925, Strauss had Charles Ellis, a professor at the University of Illinois who specialized in bridge and structural engineering and had been with Strauss since 1922, forwarded the hybrid cantilever-suspension bridge plans to George Swan and Leon Mosseiff at and in Harvard and New York City respectively so they could perform an assessment on them. In the same year, Strauss approached Moisseiff to plan an average suspension bridge. Nearly three years would go by till the next milestone.

On 4 December 1928, the official organization that would finance, design, and construct the bridge when the Golden Gate Bridge and Highway District was legally incorporated. This organization was a combination of land in San Francisco, Marin, Sonoma, Del Norte, and parts of Mendocino and Napa counties. The District's Board of Directors had their first meeting on 23 January 1929. Elections were held, and the results were as follows, William P. Filmer was elected president, and Robert H. Trumbull of Marin County elected vice president. Also, Alan MacDonald of San Rafael was appointed as general manager, W.W. Felt, Jr. of Santa Rosa named secretary, John R. Ruckstell of San Francisco auditor, and George Harlan of Sausalito was appointed attorney.

Now that the District's administration had been accomplished, the engineering team was officially set on 15 August 1929 when the Board of Directors appointed Strauss as chief engineer, as well as Leon S. Moisseiff, O.H. Amman, and Charles Derleth Jr as consulting engineers. Then, the Roaring Twenties came to a ruinous end.

Effect of the Depression

The Great Depression was a group of economic shocks that led to a crushing economic reversal of the boom of the Roaring Twenties. Any gains were washed away. Those gains are said to have concluded two months before the Stock Market Crash of 1929, known as Black Monday, 28 October. The ramped speculation in the stock market and the public's get-rich-quick mindset turned many life savings from tangible into a pipe dream. Over the first two days of the crash, the Dow lost over 25 percent of its value, losing half of its total value within a month and a half. The market would bottom out in 1932 after a total loss of 89 percent. The Crash of 1929 was only one economic shock. The other was the bank collapses, resulting in bank runs as depositors scrambled to withdraw their funds. These runs killed off a fledgling recovery and kicked off the true start of the Great Depression. The shockwave of the market crash and banking turmoil hit the public the hardest.

The bubble ran on credit, which, unlike tangible assets, created a positive feedback loop of negative effects. As loans failed, not just on the public side but also the banks themselves, they had over-leveraged themselves and now crumbled under the pressure. As banks and other financial institutions started and continued to fail, many people's savings were wiped away like sand in the wind. Credit in the form of loans whose funds were pumped into the bubble came due, and without the dividends to cover their loan payments, many were financially crushed, facing not just bankruptcy but the possibility of destitution, without a social safety net to catch the increasing number of people and families who were living hand to mouth. They called out for help and relief from their suffering and the presidential administration did try to help.

President Herbert Hoover did respond to his fellow citizens agony, but the scope and strategy of the administration did not lead to the positive effects that were envisioned. While Hoover pumped millions of dollars into, for example, relief efforts for cotton and wheat farms. This aid came as a result of a severe drought better known as The Dustbowl that was decimating the agricultural sector in the middle of the country. The administration also worked on getting the business community to keep wages high, even though prices and profits were falling. These efforts were countered after, in an effort to stimulate domestic spending the Smoot-Hawley Tariff of 1930. There would have be a change in administration in order to get a more comprehensive relief effort.

Hoover lost the 1932 presidential election to Franklin Delano Roosevelt, who ran on a platform of a New Deal for America. A large part of Roosevelt's platform was turning around the unemployment rate which reached a peak of 25 percent in 1933 with the construction of infrastructure of many kinds throughout the country. The construction of the span across the Golden Gate was one of them. As all these economic and social turmoil and changes transpired, the push to get the bridge built continued to chug along.

Construction on the bridge started at Fort Scott in San Francisco and the Marin county side on 9 December 1929 when boring started for the piers for the bridge's towers. The importance of the day was summed up by Strauss when he said, "This is a day of big projects, and the building of the Golden Gate Bridge ranks among the biggest." He continues, ... "Building the structure, after all, is a simple engineering operation, every detail of which has been checked and calculated in advance. If praise is deserved by any, it is the men whose patience and enthusiasm made it possible for building to start ...

One of these men was Ellis who after supervising the preliminary test boring started putting down the blueprints for the forthcoming span. Ellis was the crucial link in the calculations of many aspects of the design thus making those checks Strauss was referring to in the previous quote. Sweat, long hours, and telegrams were sent back and forth between Ellis and Moisseiff in New York. Twelve days after Ellis began, Strauss submitted the Report of Chief Engineer containing the calculations Ellis worked so hard on. Numbers were the unseen work while art brings forth the seen.

In order to bring together the exterior design of the bridge was conceived by architect Irving Marrow. Marrow was enchanted by the Golden Gate when he stated in 1919, "is caressed by breezes from the blue bay throughout the long golden afternoon, but perhaps it is loveliest at the cool end of the day when, for a few breathless moments, faint afterglows transfigure the gray line of hills."

Marrow would put forward some of the structure's most iconic elements such as the Art Deco styling some of which were added as the construction went on. Such elements included the streetlamps and railings. Marrow also made sure that the bridge used the light of the bay playing with shadows. He also chose the color, International Orange, that millions see everyday and that makes the Golden Gate Bridge stand out. Marrow would wrap up his extensive contribution to the project by designing how the bridge should be lit.

Time continued on. The summer 1930 brought more milestones when the War Department granted the final construction permits for a suspension bridge with a span of 4200 feet and a 220 foot and 210 feet of vertical clearance on the mid and side spans respectively. Not only did the War Department sign off but the District Board of Directors received Strauss's final plans. Also on 4 November voters in the District voted to put their own property on the line to underwrite $35 million in municipal bonds in a three to one margin.

1931 brought the geological report conditions around the straight compiled by Andrew C. Lawson, consulting engineer. The report was of utmost importance due to the location of San Francisco on the San Andreas fault line and the resulting earthquakes like the 1906 San Francisco quake. Lawson advised Strauss that the rock under the piers, for the South Tower, can hold "several times the pier load with perfect safety." In the original report submitted states that an earthquake strong enough to destroy the Golden Gate Bridge would also be strong enough to destroy San Francisco as well. All along the process moved forward. In July 1931 bids were received for the construction of the primary items with a construction cost coming in at $35 million ($743.7 million in 2025). 22 December 1932, a 1,700 foot access road from Fort Backer to close to the Lime Point Lighthouse. These important steps were needed that lead up to the start of the fabrication of the bridge on 5 January 1933.

Minute Walk in History - Bridge Construction

Take a tour back in time with this video and photos of the construction and opening, 1937, of the Golden Gate Bridge, which bridged the straight that allowed ships into San Francisco Bay from the Pacific Ocean. No longer would residents of the eastern side in Marin County have to ferry across to San Francisco.

Golden Gate Bridge Construction and Opening

Construction in 1933 moved, relativity quickly. The north tower pier and the north and south anchorage were begun. While the north tower pier would be completed by June the anchorages, by contrast, would not be completed for two and one half years. The eastern approach through the Presidio commenced in February. Also in February on the 15th, Russell G. Cone became resident engineer for the project. Groundbreaking took place at 2 p.m. on 26 February with great fanfare.

The bridge is constructed of steel, steel forged in mills in Pennsylvania shipped by railroad then loaded on barges and shipped through the Panama Canal arriving in Alameda, California in March. March also saw the construction of an 1100-foot "access trestle" for the tower on the San Francisco side. On 14 August a ship named Sidney M Haumptman hit the trestle then a tempest raged damaging the trestle once again. On 7 November 1933 constructing the Marin tower began. The December weather damage repairs would take a year. The fender walls on the San Francisco side would be finished in October of 1934. Fender walls are a crucial element of bridge design as they stand as sentinels against the forces of nature, ensuring the bridge's stability amidst turbulent waters.

1935 brought leaps and bounds in the construction timeline. This year, between January and June the tower on the San Francisco side was completed. Over the course of August and September the first step in preparing for the spinning of the main cable occurred when the catwalks were strung across the Golden Gate. The last quarter to the spring of 1936 saw the spinning of the main cable.

During the final full year of construction, 1936 brought about the suspending of the main structure. On 18 November saw the joining of the main span. This momentous occasion was marked with a meeting of officials from both sides of the bridge where remarks were exchanged and a blessing of the bridge was performed.

After decades of hard work and persistence from the dream of a connection linking both sides of the Golden Gate when the roadway was finished on 19 April 1937. It is unfortunate that it took a Great Depression to complete the dream. On the other hand, the Depression brought about competition for employment which, more than likely, contributed to the speed that the bridge was completed. Reports from men that worked on the project talk of men waiting at the site for someone to slow down or get fired so they can take their place. The bridge was a New Deal project as part of the construction was done by the Works Progress Administration(WPA), a program designed to get citizens back to work on a livable wage starting around $10 a day minimum ($224 in 2025). The financial desperation drove men, who would not have otherwise done so, to climb the great heights required. Men from all around the country flocked to the light of a fair days pay for a fair days work.

For the work was a dangerous business. A total of 11 men died during the building of the bridge. Nine died in February of 1937 when a catwalk gave way. Even though 11 lost their lives the toll was kept low by the safety equipment used on the site. The evolution of safety equipment is always moving forward. Here are a few innovations that kept the workers safe, The hard hat. Today, the hardhat is probably the quintessential feature of any construction worker. This was brand new at the time and in the 1930s, these hats were made out of leather and resembled the older football helmets. Yet, they safeguarded workers from accidental blows to the head that could prove to be quite dangerous.

The requirement of safety lines. The use of safety lines had been around for a few years, but workers would often opt out because they could be cumbersome or because they simply didn't feel they were necessary. During the building of the Golden Gate, if you didn't wear a safety line, you were fired.

Glare-free goggles. These early versions of the safety glasses prevented workers from being blinded from the reflection of the sun off the Pacific waters. Safety net. Strauss insisted that a large safety net be installed underneath the bridge for construction on the underside of it. There would be 19 workers that fell into the net and none died. They were deemed the "Halfway to Hell Club." Hangover cures. Ok, this one is probably not in place today, as the attitude towards coming into work hungover has changed a little, but Strauss provided sauerkraut juice cures for hangovers for many of his workers. These innovations helped save lives and made the work a little more bearable, and continue to save lives to this very day.

Eight days after the roadway received its necessary coating of tarmac, 27 April 1937, the final rivet, one of gold, was driven in at midspan by Edward "Iron Horse" Stanley, the ironworker who drove the first rivet connecting the steel. The ceremonial gold rivet disintegrated under the heat of the rivet gun. On the 27th May, the opening of the bridge became weeklong celebration, lasting until June 2. The party kicked off at 6 a.m. with 18,000 people waiting in line with another 15,000 an hour crossing that day. Here come the autos. The 28th saw the president, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, declared the bridge open from the White House, that day for cars. This day was packed with contests, speeches, a flyover of 500 planes, the Navy sent 42 ships with the USS Pennsylvania leading the way. The day wrapped up with a fireworks display.

The Golden Gate Bridge is the centerpiece of the Bay Area. Its history shows how human kinds' drive to bend our world to our will through the minds of skilled individuals contributing to a now iconic landmark. This landmark stands as a physical embodiment of the hard work, iron nerves, and government's helping hand during the worst financial crisis in American history. The bridge stands as a beacon in the fog that so often shrouds the area. Or is the bridge like Willis O'Brien a San Francisco Chronicle reporter said, "A necklace of surpassing beauty was placed about the lovely throat of San Francisco ..." Or like many aspects of this life is it many things to many people?

Note: A remarkable fact is that while the Golden Gate Bridge gets most of the accolades of this time in crossing San Francisco Bay, the Oakland-Bay Bridge would be built in the same era, and would host a celebration for both in 1939 and 1940, the Golden Gate International Exposition.

Photo above: Golden Gate Bridge from the north Point Lobos area of the National Recreation Area. Source: Wikipedia Commons. Below: Construction of the Golden Gate Bridge, 1934, Chas. M. Miller. Courtesy Library of Congress. Info Source: "What's in a Name - the Golden Gate? - Statistics & Data | Golden Gate." goldengate.org; "Golden Gate | Strait, California, United States | Britannica." Encyclopedia Britannica, 2020l; "Page Restricted." Sfgate.com, 2025; Zelazko, Alicja. "California Gold Rush | Definition & Facts." Encyclopedia Britannica, 20 Feb. 2018; Morgan, Neil, and Gregory Lewis McNamee. "California | Flag, Facts, Maps, Capital, Cities, & Destinations." Encyclopedia Britannica, 2018; 'The Founding of San Francisco - 1776." Sfmuseum.org, 2019; REPORT, BAY CROSSINGS STAFF. "A Brief History of Ferries on the Bay." Bay Crossings, 1 Jan. 2001; "United States: Motor Vehicles in Use 1900-1988." Statista, 31 Dec. 1993; Fuller, John. "Why Did Cars Become the Dominant Form of Transportation in the United States?" HowStuffWorks, 7 July 2008; "Key Dates - Moments & Events | Golden Gate." Goldengate.org, 2010; Pells, Richard H, and Christina D Romer. "Great Depression." Britannica, 23 Oct. 2024; Lambert, Slim. "75 Years Ago, a Deadly Day on the Golden Gate." NPR.org, 2012; "Men Who Built the Bridge | American Experience" PBS; Richardson, Gary. "The Great Depression." Federal Reserve History, Federal Reserve History, 22 Nov. 2013; Richardson, Gary, et al. "Stock Market Crash of 1929." Federal Reserve History, Federal Reserve History, 22 Nov. 2013: Richardson, Gary. "Banking Panics of 1930-31." Federal Reserve History, 22 Nov. 2013; Tejvan Pettinger. "Positive Feedback Loop - Economics Help." Economicshelp.org, Dec. 2016; Oklahoma Historical Society. "The Great Depression, the Dust Bowl, and New Deal in Oklahoma."; Golden Gate Bibliography, "Glossary of Geologic Terms - Geology (U.S. National Park Service)." 2024; Goldengate.org, 2016"; Lawson, Andrew C, May 8 1930 "Report Of The Geologist"; Singh, Aarushi. "Golden Gate Bridge: The CRAZY Engineering behind It." Engineer's Planet, 10 Apr. 2024; The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica. "Works Progress Administration | Definition & History." Encyclopedia Britannica, 28 Feb. 2018; "The Evolution of Construction Safety: From the Golden Gate Bridge to Today." Constructors, Inc., 9 Sept. 2020.

History Photo Bomb

President Franklin D. Roosevelt, who served four terms as President. Courtesy National Archives.

Out of work workers during the Great Depression. Courtesy National Archives.

Timeline Book

During the decade of the 1930's, World's Fairs of various sizes were held throughout the United States to stimulate the local economies as public works projects to pull the country out of depression. They were also used a public confidence projects to buoy the spirit of a nation in economic turmoil.

Chicago 1933-4
San Diego 1935-6
Cleveland 1936-7
Dallas 1936-7
New York 1939-40
San Francisco 1939-40

ABH Travel Tip

Take the time to listen, not only to the guides at the various historic sites you visit, but also to the ambiance around the sites themselves. Imagine yourself back in time. It's easier to do in the early morning or evening when crowds are low and the bustle lessened, but it can be a wonderful experience to imagine for yourself the past that happened on the ground where you stand. Above photo, the salient at Spotsylvania Battlefield, Virginia.

Night view of the Trylon and Perisphere at the New York World's Fair of 1939-40, 1939, New York Daily News, Courtesy Pinterest. During the first year of the fair, World War II would start.

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