Golden Gate Bridge

GOLDEN GATE BRIDGE, erected across the en-trance of the harbor at San Francisco, California, at a cost of approximately $35 million, by the Golden Gate Bridge and Highway District, created by the California legislature (1923, 1928). The bridge links San Francisco peninsula with counties along the Redwood Highway to the north. The central span is 4,200 feet long, supported by towers that rise 746 feet from the water's surface; and the total length, including approaching viaducts, is one-and-three-quarter miles. The bridge has six lanes for motor traffic and sidewalks for pedestrians. Construction began 5 January 1933, and the bridge was opened to traffic 28 May 1937.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Petroski, Henry. Engineers of Dreams: Great Bridge Builders and the Spanning of America. New York: Knopf, 1995.

Van der Zee, John. The Gate: The True Story of the Design and Construction of the Golden Gate Bridge. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1986.

P. OrmanRay/a. r.

See alsoBridges ; California ; New Deal ; Reconstruction Finance Corporation ; Roads ; San Francisco .

Golden Gate Bridge

The Golden Gate bridge, with its soaring art deco design, its ability to sway 27.5 feet in high winds, and its arches posed against the backdrop of the sea, more than any other monument symbolizes San Francisco. It spans a submerged cleft in the coastal mountain range, dubbed the "Golden Gate" by prospectors on their way to California's gold fields in the mid-1800s. When completed in 1937, it was the world's longest suspension bridge (1.86 miles) and the highest structure west of New York (745 feet). Its chief engineered was Joseph Strauss.

Its daily load of approximately 100,000 cars is supported by cables that are three feet in diameter. When the thick fog pours in rendering it invisible from land, the bridge's distinct color, "international orange," keeps seagulls from crashing into it.

—Adrienne Russell