"Golden Gate Bridge Sunrise" - San Francisco California
San Francisco. The site of the legendary gold rush of 1849, and one of the most important cities in America by the beginning of the 20th Century.
There were only ferry links connecting San Francisco with the rest of the surrounding towns and cities of Northern California.
The idea of building a bridge to the mainland was decades old.
The dream was to connect San Francisco, one of the largest cities in America in the 1920s, with the rest of the mainland. This would ensure strong growth moving forward.
The city was growing slower than the national average, it took 27 minutes to cross the channel and $1 per vehicle, not a small price to pay 100 years ago!
The water was ice cold, almost 300 ft deep with strong tides, swirling currents, high winds and dense fog making the construction virtually impossible.
But this was America. The land of freedom and innovation.
In 1916, there was the first serious proposal to build a bridge from the Northern tip of the San Francisco peninsula to Marin County.
It was estimated by the city to cost 100 million dollars! (That's 1.4 billion in today's money).
There was a enquiry to engineers in the area whether it could be built for less.
Joseph Strauss responded, and promised he could do it for only 17 million dollars using brand new technology, and taking advantage of recent advances in metallurgy.
Strauss spent more than 10 years getting support for this project.
He has already completed over 400 drawbridges and had a great reputation.
This was a completely different matter though. This would be the tallest and longest bridge ever built in history!
Many powerful groups opposed the idea. The railroad were scared this would provide competition to their ferry service and tried to block this project with a law suit.
The War Department tried to block the project as they were worried any mishap would block one of the most crucial ports on the Pacific coast.
Even the Unions wanted assurances their local workers would be favored for construction jobs.
But there were allies!
The young Automotive industry rallied support, and almost all the counties in Northern California came together to support and fund the project!
For the first time in history Northern California was connected to the mainland!
The bridge-opening celebration in 1937 lasted for an entire week!
The day before vehicle traffic was allowed, 200,000 people crossed either on foot!
It was a great triumph of human will, man overcoming engineering impossibilities to secure safe, easy and continuous passage along the Pacific Coast, raising the profile of San Francisco massively and the bridge remains to this day as one of the most photographed monuments in the world!
