Golden Gate Bridge history/timeline
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GOLDEN GATE BRIDGE
Photos ©TouringSFO
The original was posted to TripAdvisor's San Francisco Forum where there are comments.“I named [the strait] Golden Gate.”
August 18, 1869: [Joshua] Norton I, Emperor of the United States and Protector of Mexico, commanded that a bridge be built to span the Golden Gate.
In 1916, engineering ex-student James Wilkins, a journalist at the San
Francisco Bulletin, revived the idea of spanning Golden Gate Strait by calling for a suspension bridge with a center span of 3,000 feet.
The first design for the bridge was a blend of a cantilever and suspension span. At least one observer liken'd the design to “two grotesque steel beetles”. It never gained popular support, but it did convince people that it was physically and fiscally possible to bridge the Golden Gate.May 23, 1923: The Golden Gate Bridge Highway District Act of California was passed.
January 5, 1933: Construction of The Bridge began in Marín County.
February 26, 1933: The Bridge's ground breaking ceremony.
November 18, 1936: The Golden Gate Bridge's main span joined.
May 27, 1937 at 06:00: The Golden Gate Bridge was dedicated and open to pedestrian traffic. At Noon, Franklin Delano Roosevelt pressed a telegraph key in the White House to signal the opening of The Bridge to motor vehicles.
July 1, 1971: The Golden Gate Bridge bonds were retired. The promise to terminate the taking of tolls was trashed.
February 22, 1985: The billionth vehicle crossed The Bridge.
May 27, 1987: The towers of the Golden Gate Bridge were illuminated eliciting a universal gasp from the thousands of people gathered to celebrate the opening of The Bridge fifty years earlier.
Although Joseph B. Strauss has taken, and been given, credit for building The Bridge, according to the Historical Review Committee of the American Society of Civil Engineers Charles Ellis and Leon Moisseiff are the “technical and theoretical brains behind the design of The Bridge”.
August 22, 1949: Charles Ellis died. It is believed he never saw his completed project.
April 21, 2012: Jack Balestreri, born on Goat Hill September 12, 1916, died at the age of 95. He was the last person known to have worked on The Bridge to die.
Visions of the Golden Gate Bridge
Half Way To Hell:
The Workers and Unions That Built The Golden Gate Bridge (a 29-minute movie)
May 27, 2012: Radio station KFOG made available a 19-minute video of
The Bridge's 75th Anniversary Celebration Finale. It's a must see!
Page Created By TouringSFO at SanFranMail.com
Message sent to and/or posted in May 2012 at:
KTVU, KRON, KPIX, KGO, KQED radio and television, KNTV
To paraphrase Joseph N. Welch: Have you no sense of responsibility?
You are running an advertisement signed by Hewlett-Packard that diffuses demonstrably false information, to wit:
The Golden Gate Bridge was “the world's longest suspension bridge” when it opened.
Within sight of The Bridge is the San Francisco Bay Bridge, then, and perhaps now, the world's longest suspension bridge, that opened about six months earlier. The James “Sunny Jim” Rolph Bridge is still within sight of The Bridge.
The Golden Gate Bridge was, before the opening of the Verazzano Narrows Bridge on the other side of Yerba Buena Island, the world's longest suspended single span, quite different.
Hewlett-Packard should pull those mis-informing announcements that you should never have allowed to air in the first place!
Shame on you and Hewlett-Packard!
Here's a timeline of The Bridge.
KTVU, KRON, KPIX, KGO, KQED radio and television, KNTV
To paraphrase Joseph N. Welch: Have you no sense of responsibility?
You are running an advertisement signed by Hewlett-Packard that diffuses demonstrably false information, to wit:
The Golden Gate Bridge was “the world's longest suspension bridge” when it opened.
Within sight of The Bridge is the San Francisco Bay Bridge, then, and perhaps now, the world's longest suspension bridge, that opened about six months earlier. The James “Sunny Jim” Rolph Bridge is still within sight of The Bridge.
The Golden Gate Bridge was, before the opening of the Verazzano Narrows Bridge on the other side of Yerba Buena Island, the world's longest suspended single span, quite different.
Hewlett-Packard should pull those mis-informing announcements that you should never have allowed to air in the first place!
Shame on you and Hewlett-Packard!
Here's a timeline of The Bridge.
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