Key Dates
1800s | 1906 to 1937 | 1950s | 1960s | 1970s | 1980s | 1990s | 2000s | 2010s
1849: The population of San Francisco explodes after gold is discovered in northern California. Once a village called Yerba Buena with a population of about 400, San Francisco is now a city of 35,000.
August 18, 1869: Joshua Norton, a gone mad and bankrupted Gold Rush merchant, declares himself Norton I, Emperor of the United States, and begins issuing decrees. San Franciscans tolerate him. He is the first to call publicly for the construction of bridges across the San Francisco Bay.
January 1870: Joseph Baermann Strauss is born in Cincinnati, Ohio.
1872: Entrepreneur Charles Crocker presents plans and cost estimates for a bridge spanning the Golden Gate Strait.
1872: Future bridge designer and theorist Leon Moisseiff is born in Latvia.
1876: Charles Ellis, the engineer who will one day be instrumental in the design calculations for the Golden Gate Bridge, is born in Maine.
April 18, 1906: San Francisco is devastated by a massive earthquake.
1915: The Panama Pacific International Exposition opens in San Francisco to celebrate the completion of the Panama Canal (a year after it opened).
1916: James H. Wilkins, a structural engineer and a newspaper editor for the San Francisco Call Bulletin, proposes a design for spanning the Golden Gate Strait. While campaigning for a bridge, he catches the attention of San Francisco City Engineer Michael M. O'Shaughnessy. O'Shaughnessy consults other engineers from around the country about feasibility and cost. Some say it cannot be done and others speculate that a bridge will cost over $100 million – yet Joseph B. Strauss, who has designed nearly 400 spans, claims it can be built for only $25 to $30 million.
January 1920: At San Francisco City Engineer Michael O'Shaughnessy’s request, the U.S.S. Natoma sounds the Golden Gate channel.
May 1920: O'Shaughnessy receives the Natoma's survey data and sends it to Joseph Strauss in Chicago; Francis C. McMath, president of the Canadian Bridge and Iron Company in Detroit; and Gustav Lindenthal, the man who engineered the 1,000-foot Hell Gate Arch over New York's East River in 1916.
June 28, 1921: Joseph B. Strauss submits preliminary sketches to O'Shaugnessy with a cost estimate of $27 million.
1922: Michael O'Shaughnessy, Joseph B. Strauss, and Edward Rainey, a mayoral aide, propose the creation of a special political entity for the Golden Gate Bridge project.
1922: Strauss adds Charles Ellis, professor of structural and bridge engineering at the University of Illinois, to his staff.
December 7, 1922: Almost a year and a half after receiving Strauss's preliminary sketches, O'Shaughnessy makes the Strauss design public.
May 25, 1923: The California legislature passes the Golden Gate Bridge and Highway District Act of California. The Association of Bridging the Gate is empowered to create a district to build the bridge.
Spring 1924: As the owner of the land on both sides of the Golden Gate Strait, the federal War Department is the only entity that can authorize construction. San Francisco and Marin counties make a joint application for a permit to build the Bridge.
May 16, 1924: War Department officials meet to discuss whether the Bridge will hinder navigation and if adequate financing is available.
December 24, 1924: Secretary of War John W. Weeks issues a temporary construction permit for the Bridge.
December 4, 1928: The Golden Gate Bridge and Highway District is incorporated as the entity to finance, design, and construct the Bridge. The District consists of San Francisco, Marin, Sonoma, Del Norte, and parts of Mendocino and Napa counties.
August 15, 1929: Joseph B. Strauss is chosen as the Bridge's chief engineer. Leon S. Moisseiff, O. H. Amman, and Charles Derleth, Jr. are named consulting engineers.
October 29, 1929: The stock market crashes and the Great Depression begins.
March 1, 1930: After overseeing test boring in San Francisco, Charles Ellis returns to Strauss Engineering offices in Chicago to start the preliminary design. Working long hours, and consulting via telegram with Leon S. Moisseiff in New York, Ellis computes dozens of factors involved in the Bridge design.
Summer 1930: Strauss hires a local architect, Irving Morrow, to design an architectural treatment for the Bridge. Morrow will later be recognized for his aesthetic contributions – the Golden Gate Bridge's distinctive Art Deco lines, burnt red-orange hue, and the structure's dramatic lighting.
August 11, 1930: The War Department issues a final permit for the construction of a suspension bridge with a 4,200-foot main span, a vertical clearance of 220 feet at midspan and a 210-foot clearance at the sidespans.
August 27, 1930: Joseph B. Strauss submits his final plans for the Golden Gate Bridge to the District Board
of Directors.
November 4, 1930:
Voters from the six counties that comprise the Golden Gate Bridge and Highway District agree to a $35 million bond issue, using their homes, farms, vineyards, and business properties as collateral to support the construction of the Golden Gate Bridge. The vote is 145,657 in favor and 46,954 against.
January 5, 1933: Construction of the Golden Gate Bridge begins.
February 26, 1933: The official ground breaking ceremony for the Golden Gate Bridge takes place.
April 1934: Ray Strong’s panoramic depiction of the Golden Gate Bridge under construction pays tribute to the feat of engineering required to span the Golden Gate Strait. Read more at the Smithsonian American Art Museum website: http://americanart.si.edu/collections/search/artwork/?id=23442.
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Opening Day on the Golden Gate
Bridge |
May 27, 1937:
Golden Gate Bridge opens to pedestrian traffic. When writing about Pedestrian Day the next day, San Francisco Chronicle reporter Wills O’Brien wrote, “A necklace of surpassing beauty was placed about the lovely throat of San Francisco yesterday.”
May 28, 1937:
Golden Gate Bridge opens to vehicular traffic at twelve o'clock noon, when President
Franklin D. Roosevelt pressed a telegraph key in the White House to announce the event to
the world. The Bridge opened ahead of schedule and under budget.
In 1954: At age 40, one of the founding fathers of fitness, Jack LaLanne, proved his belief that “anything in life is possible if you apply yourself” by captivating the entire world when he swam the length of the Golden Gate Strait (approx 1.7 miles) with 140 pounds of equipment strapped to his body. A year later, he swam from Alcatraz Island to San Francisco while handcuffed.
March 22, 1957: A 5.3 earthquake centered in Daly City hits the San Francisco Bay Area, resulting in no deaths but lots of damage. According to the San Francisco Chronicle, at about 11:45 a.m. on March 22, a "twisting, jarring side-rolling motion" caused skyscrapers in downtown San Francisco to sway visibly. People ran into the streets, some "sobbing hysterically," and the Golden Gate Bridge "undulated as in a fierce gale."
May 8, 1959: According to the San Francisco Chronicle, the Golden Gate Bridge and Highway District had agreed to cooperate in the make-believe destruction of San Francisco on May 8 for Stanley Kramer's movie "On the Beach” but the climax - a monumental traffic jam - in the early morning rush hour wasn't in the script. According to plans, the 15-person movie crew made its way onto the west sidewalk at 5 a.m. Cameras were to roll at sunrise (6:10 am), filming a submarine passing underneath the Bridge. But the sunlight could not pierce the morning fog. Navy men, with the film crew, contacted the submarine's captain and asked him to cruise around until the fog lifted. Soon it was 7 a.m. and the Marin County commuters were on their way to work. By 9 a.m., three lanes of traffic were jammed up a mile back.
February 27, 1960: The Golden Gate Bridge sidewalks began closing at night. Bridge directors voted to close the pedestrian walkways of the span between sunset and sunrise in the interests of public safety.
In 1966: San Francisco topless star Yvonne D’Angers, dubbed the Persian Lamb, chained herself to the Golden Gate Bridge to protest her long-threatened deportation to Iran.
October 25, 1967: Bridge Painter Lee Patrick fell to his death while working under the San Francisco approach span. Since the original construction of the Bridge when 11 lives were lost, this is the first death of a Bridge worker.
November 10, 1969: The California State Legislature passed Assembly Bill 584 authorizing the District to develop a transportation facility plan for implementing a mass transportation program in the Golden Gate Corridor. This was to include any and all forms of transit, including ferry. At that time, the word "Transportation" was added to the District name to indicate its new commitment to public transportation.
February 28, 1970: Golden Gate Bridge west sidewalk opens to bicycle use during non-work hours. Bridge work forces use the west sidewalk during the day to perform a variety of on-going maintenance and repair tasks.
August 15, 1970:
Golden Gate Ferry begins service between Sausalito and San Francisco.
July 1, 1971:
The remaining original bonds issued for the construction of the Golden Gate Bridge are
retired. The $35 million in principal and nearly $39 million in interest
were financed
entirely from Bridge tolls.
January 1, 1972:
Golden Gate Transit regional intercounty (between counties) bus service begins.
February 26, 1976:
The Golden Gate Bridge appears on the cover of Rolling Stone Magazine as the backdrop with five prominent San Francisco based rockers of the day, with a title above the photo that reads, "What a Long Strange Trip It's Been."
December 11, 1976:
Golden Gate Ferry service expands to include service between Larkspur and
San Francisco.
September 29, 1984: The District Board of Directors decides to allow a British production company to film a scene of a new James Bond movie on one of the Golden Gate Bridge main cables, at a height of more than 700 feet above water. The film, "A View to a Kill," features Roger Moore as Bond. One of the more spectacular scenes is a fight between Bond and a villain on the north tower of the Bridge with the loser of the fight falling to his death from the main cable. To capture this scene, the producers hoped to talk the Board into letting them drop a dummy from the north tower to the roadway; this portion of filming was denied. "With all the problems we have with suicides on this Bridge, I think this is a bum idea," said Director Quentin Kopp of San Francisco.
February 22, 1985:
One billionth car crosses the Golden Gate Bridge.
August 15, 1985:
Construction is complete on the replacement of the original Golden Gate Bridge roadway
with a modern orthotropic steel plate deck.
May 24, 1987:
Golden Gate Bridge celebrates its 50th Anniversary.
October 1993: In recognition of "enduring excellence in design," the Society of American Registered Architects (SARA) honored the Golden Gate Bridge with its "Distinguished Building Award." For the first time in SARA's history, the Distinguished Building Award was presented to a structure other than a building. The Golden Gate Bridge was honored because of its "impact on the city, design, economic value, cultural statement, engineering accomplishment and contribution to the overall furtherance of the region." The award commended the work of Bridge Architect Irving Morrow, Chief Engineer Joseph Strauss and the Golden Gate Bridge, Highway and Transportation District.
February 16, 1994: The Golden Gate Bridge named one of the "Seven Wonders of the Modern World" by the American Society of Civil Engineers, along with the Hoover Dam, Interstate Highway System, Kennedy Space Center, Panama Canal, Trans-Alaska Pipeline and world Trade Center.
August 15, 1995:
Golden Gate Ferry celebrates 25th Anniversary.
September 13, 1996:
Golden Gate Bridge designated a double-fine zone.
January 1, 1997:
Golden Gate Transit regional intercounty bus service celebrates its 25th Anniversary.
May 27, 1997:
Golden Gate Bridge celebrates its 60th Anniversary.
August 5, 1997: Groundbreaking ceremony held for Phase I of the Golden Gate Bridge Seismic Retrofit Construction.
September 3, 1998: United States Postal Service unveils Golden Gate Bridge commemorative stamp.
March 1999: The Golden Gate Bridge awarded the number two position in the Top 10 Construction Achievements of the 20th Century by CONEXPO-CON/AGG. The Top 10 Rankings were: Chunnel Tunnel; Golden Gate Bridge; Dwight D. Eisenhower System of Interstate and Defense Highways; Empire State Building; Hoover/Boulder Dam; Panama Canal; Sydney Opera House; Aswan High Dam; World Trade Center; and, the Hong Kong Airport.
July 13, 2000: FasTrak electronic toll collection system is launched on the Golden Gate Bridge.
August 15, 2000: Golden Gate Sausalito Ferry celebrates 30 years of service on the San Francisco Bay.
September 19, 2000: American Public Works Association selects the Golden Gate Bridge as the Top Ten Public Works Projects of the Century.
September 2000: The Metropolitan Transportation Commission (MTC) selects Golden Gate Ferry to receive an MTC Award of Merit for its part in the successful Pacific Bell Park Transit Campaign.
September 2000: The District takes first place in APTA's distinguished 1999 AdWheel Awards Competition for its Bus Operator Recruitment Campaign in the "Marketing on a Shoestring Campaign" category.
October 24, 2000: The first of several shipments of massive cranes, at a maximum height of 223.75 feet above waterline, bound for the Port of Oakland from China, passes under the Golden Gate Bridge with an estimated clearance of about 13 feet.
May 11, 2001: A construction contract is awarded to Shimmick Construction Company, Inc./Obayashi Corportation, a Joint Venture, Hayward, CA for Phase 2 of the Golden Gate Bridge Seismic Retrofit Construction.
May 30, 2001: The American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) names the Golden Gate Bridge a Civil Engineering Monument of the Millenium.
July 20, 2001: The Golden Gate Ferry high-speed catamaran, Motor Vessel (M.V.) Mendocino, is christened at Noyo Harbor, near Fort Bragg, CA. Built by Nicols Bros., Freeland, WA, it is named in honor of Mendocino County as it is one of six counties that comprise the District.
July 22, 2001: M.V. Mendocino ferry vessel arrives at the Golden Gate Larkspur Ferry Terminal in Larkspur, CA.
August 24, 2001: M.V. Mendocino ferry vessel is christened, for a second time, at the San Francisco Golden Gate Ferry Terminal.
September 10, 2001: M.V. Mendocino ferry vessel enters into service between Larkspur and San Francisco.
April 26, 2002: A contract is awarded for the installation of six new engines on the three original 725-passenger Larkspur Ferry vessels, referred to as the Spaulding vessels (after the designer).
May 1, 2002: The second shipment of massive cranes, at a maximum height of 227.7 feet above waterline, bound for the Port of Oakland from China, passes under the Golden Gate Bridge with an estimated clearance of about 7.9 feet.
May 27, 2002: Golden Gate Bridge celebrates its 65th anniversary without fanfare.
June 14, 2002: A third shipment of massive cranes, at a maximum height of 227.7 feet above waterline, bound for the Port of Oakland from China, passes under the Golden Gate Bridge with an estimated clearance of about 10 feet.
September 1, 2002: Golden Gate Bridge toll increases to $5.00 cash, $4.00 FasTrak and $2.50 per axle (for vehicles exceeding two axles).
2007: The San Francisco Bay Guardian named the Golden Gate Bridge the BEST HISTORICAL LANDMARK in its annual "Best of the Bay" edition.
May 28, 2007: Golden Gate Bridge celebrates its 70th Anniversary with the release of a new book, "The Golden Gate Bridge, Report of the Chief Engineer, Volume 2, by Stahl, Mohn, Currie. Order the book online.
September 17, 2007: TransLink®, the Bay Area’s smartcard fare payment system, is made available to all Golden Gate Transit and Golden Gate Ferry customers.
November 18, 2007: With a permit granted from the District, artist, educator, and health advocate Michael Grbich tap-danced across the Golden Gate Bridge sidewalkto celebrate his 75th birthday. Watch it on YouTube! Note: an advance permit is required for activities such as these.
In 2008: The San Francisco Bay Guardian named the Golden Gate Bridge the BEST HISTORICAL LANDMARK in its annual "Best of the Bay" edition.
June 14 & 15, 2008: San Rafael's Italian Street Painting Festival entry of the Golden Gate Bridge by artist Ian Ross.
August 10, 2008: A distressed pelican is rescued from the southbound curb lane of the Bridge at approximately 2:44pm and transferred to animal care.
October 25, 2008: A Zeppelin NT, a 246-foot blimp-like airship, passed over the Golden Gate Bridge en route to its new home at Moffett Field in Mountain View. A California startup plans to offer aerial tours of the San Francisco Bay area in the newly built zeppelin, one of only three in the world. It carries 12 passengers, and tickets start at $495 per person.
March 11, 2009: The largest crane barge on the west coast passes under the Golden Gate Bridge. The crane, nicknamed the "The Left Coast Lifter,'' is fixed to a barge that measures 400 feet by 100 feet. The crane’s boom is 328 feet long, weighs 992 tons, and is capable of lifting 1,873 tons of materials. The crane will be used in the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge Seismic Safety Project and will place all of the self-anchored suspension bridge deck sections and the lower portions of the new span's tower, projected to stand 525 feet tall.
May 3, 2009: At about 6:20 pm, the CHP stopped a horseback rider who was crossing the Golden Gate Bridge sidewalk. Horses are not allowed to cross the Bridge sidewalks due to safety considerations.
January 20, 2010: Travel + Leisure Magazine names the Golden Gate Bridge as one of the World’s Ten Most Amazing Views, along with the Grand Canyon; Manhattan skyline in New York City; The Matterhorn, Switzerland; Cliffs of Moher, Ireland; Paris skyline; Great Wall of China; Machu Picchu, Peru; Great Barrier Reef, Australia; The Tiger's Nest (or Paro Taktsang Monastery), Bhutan.
January 22, 2010: It snowed on the north side of the Golden Gate Bridge.
January 27, 2010: Approaching about 6:45 am, the ocean liner Queen Victoria was greeted by the foghorns of the Golden Gate Bridge which were operated by Bridge Electrician R. Reesnik. View the arrival here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PHYjyW-hkVI and check out the cool photo below by Al Mueller. The Queen Victoria, Cunard's newest luxury liner and the company's second largest, was making her Maiden Call to San Francisco during her current world voyage. See another great photo here: http://www.csmonitor.com/CSM-Photo-Galleries/Photos-of-the-Day/2010/Photos-of-the-Day-01-27.
January 28, 2010: Cemex cement plant in Davenport, CA closed after 104 years in operation. The Davenport plant portland cement was one of the ingredients that was mixed with the sand, gravel, and water at the construction site to make most of the concrete that was used to build the Golden Gate Bridge anchorages, foundations, and part of the original concrete deck. The portland cement was brought in huge barrels, and the aggregates were delivered by barge, with the mixing occurring on-site. At least two other cement manufacturers furnished cement for the concrete in the Bridge: Monterey Portland Cement Company, Monterey, and the Permanent Portland Cement Company, Milpitas.
* All Photos (except where noted) copyright © Golden Gate Bridge, Highway and Transportation District. All Rights Reserved.