The Bridge They Said Couldn't Be Built

The fog was the least of it. When construction began on the Golden Gate Bridge on January 5, 1933, the strait it had to cross was a sailor's nightmare: brutal tides, deep water, and winds that could stop a man mid-step. Plenty of respected engineers had declared a bridge there impossible. But on that winter morning, in the darkest year of the Great Depression, the work started anyway.

The dream had been brewing since 1916, when journalist James Wilkins first proposed spanning the Golden Gate. Chicago bridge engineer Joseph Strauss took up the cause and spent a decade refining the design, aided by consulting engineer Leon Moisseiff and architect Irving Morrow — whose Art Deco styling would make the bridge beautiful as well as strong. Morrow, working with his wife Gertrude, also helped choose its trademark color: "international orange," a brilliant vermilion picked to resist rust and flatter the Bay's sunsets.

Money was the first miracle. In November 1930, voters in six Bay Area counties agreed three-to-one to put up their homes, farms, and businesses as collateral for a $35 million bond. When Depression-era markets wouldn't buy the bonds, Strauss turned to A.P. Giannini, founder of Bank of America, who simply said his bank would take them. The official groundbreaking ceremony followed on February 26 at Crissy Field.

The building was the second miracle. Workers blasted rock 65 feet beneath the bay to plant earthquake-proof foundations, raised 746-foot towers, and spun the great cables wire by wire — while fog, storms, and tides fought them every step of the way. Eleven men died during construction, a sobering cost behind the triumph.

When the bridge opened on May 27, 1937, its 4,200-foot main span was the longest in the world — a record it held until 1964. It had come in under budget by $1.3 million, an almost unheard-of feat. And it remade the region: with San Francisco suddenly an easy drive from Marin County and the Redwood Empire, the North Bay boomed — Marin's population roughly tripled between 1940 and 1960. More than an engineering marvel, the bridge was a statement: even in the Depression's bleakest year, America could still build the impossible.

No photograph of the bridge's construction meeting our publication standards — public domain or Creative Commons licensed, and large enough to reproduce well — could be verified for this story, so it is published without an image.