Opposition to the Bridge and Facts | American Experience | PBS (2024)

Despite their city's obvious need to expand, a number of San Franciscans opposed Joseph Strauss'quest to build the Golden Gate Bridge. Their reasons ranged from the practical to the emotional.

Too Costly
Strauss' rough estimate of construction costs was $25 million, a price equivalent to the appraised value of two-thirds of all property in San Francisco. In the summer of 1929, eight years after Strauss had presented his blueprints, city officials asked the Hooveradministration to help fund the bridge's construction. By October of that year, the nation plunged into a major economic depressionand the government declined San Francisco's request. Money for the bridge would have to be raised locally.

Too Risky
Administrators feared that bridge tolls would be insufficient to recoup an initial investment, and worried that already overburdened taxpayers would resent having to shoulder the debt. The tax-resistant San Francisco Board of Supervisors opposed Strauss' plans. But Strauss was not easily deterred. He hired a political "fixer," H. H. "Doc" Meyers, to bribe members of the board. Bridge cable supervisor Charles Kring recalled, "[Strauss'] secretary told me... that every month someone would show up, pick up a paper sack with $400 in it. Well, $400 in those days was the equivalent of about $2,000 today." Strauss eventually cleared away resistance among the elected officials.

Too Environmentally Harmful
Still, other prominent area organizations opposed the bridge. The Sierra Club feared it would cause environmental damage (one of the club's most enthusiastic members, San Francisco native Ansel Adams, would take a bitterweet photographof the Golden Gate in 1932, on the eve of the bridge's construction).

Too Disruptive
Operating in one of America's busiest ports, local shippers fretted that bridge construction would negatively affect their businesses. Golden Gate Ferries, owned by Southern Pacific, California's largest and most influential corporation, was concerned the bridge would steal customers, usurp millions of dollars in revenue, and undermine the lucrative ferry business. The U.S. War Department, which owned the land on both shores of the Gate, was equally opposed to the bridge, fearing construction would interfere with military operations and that, once completed, the bridge might be blown up by enemies and obstruct the harbor.

Unsafe, or Ugly
Bridge opponents voiced concerns about the Gate's geographical situation. Many engineers doubted that a bridge could be designed to withstandsuch a notoriously violent environment. Critics attacked Strauss' engineering abilities, and described his initial design as "an upside-down rat trap." Still more criticism came from residents who did not wish to disturb the aesthetic beauty of the Gate. Opponents of the bridge's construction were collectively known as the "Old Guard."

A Boonor a Burden?
Californians in the northern counties were of two minds about the proposed bridge. While it would certainly bring economic benefits, the bridge might also cause property taxes to go up. Only six of the twenty-one counties to be invited ended up joining the Golden Gate Bridge District. The other counties withdrew their support in 1926, leaving Strauss with less than the required 10% to form the district. Strauss lobbied heavily for the bridge, pleading with residents to approve a bond issue. His efforts paid off: on November 4, 1930, voters approved, by a margin of 3 to 1, the $35 million bridge bond.

A Financing Hurdle
The bond issue was not the last hurdle, however. Strauss need to find a bank to accept the bonds. A year passed, as Americans struggled to survive the Depression's hard times. In that economic climate, the bridge's future seemed increasingly tenuous. At last, Strauss approached produce-worker-turned-financier A.O. Giannini, the founder of the Bank of America, and won his approval. Construction could finally start. The tenacious Strauss compared his struggle to "a 13 years' war... a long and torturous march."

The Ultimate Refutation
Sixteen years after Strauss had first presented his design to city officials in 1921, the spectacular and universally beloved— bridge opened to the public. As Strauss announced triumphantly, "The Golden Gate Bridge, the bridge which could not and should not be built, which the War Department would not permit, which the rocky foundation of the pier base would not support, which would have no traffic to justify it, which would ruin the beauty of the Golden Gate, which could not be completed within my costs estimate of $27,165,000, stands before you in all its majestic splendor, in complete refutation of every attack made upon it."

Bridge Facts:
Before the bridge:Ocean tides flow through the Golden Gate four times a day —twice coming in and twice going out. The quantity of salt water in motion between high and low tides averages 390 billion gallons.

Water depth at the Golden Gate is more than 300 feet, but San Francisco Bay waters are, on average, just 14 feet deep.
Thousands of animal species, including over 130 species of fish, call the bay home. Four distinct runs of Chinook salmon migrate through the bay on their way to spawn upstream.

San Francisco Bay is a drowned valley. At the end of the most recent Ice Age, 10,000 years ago, melting ice caused rising ocean levels. Water crept steadily through the Golden Gate and flooded the land beyond.

In October 1933, Civilian Conservation Corpsworkers arrived at Muir Woods National Monument, a protected old-growth redwood forest on the Marin headlands. They built revetments, bridges, buildings, benches, and an amphitheater —anticipating a surge of new visitors to the majestic forest after the bridge opened.

During construction: In August 1933, a Portland-bound ship, the Sidney M. Hauptman, veered off course in a dense fog and crashed into a construction trestle, setting back the project by about a month.

"Hello —Phone Service to Davy Jones' Locker," read a December 1934 headline in the San Francisco News. The accompanying photo showed bridge builders 107 deep feet down in an inspection well, calling to the surface to make their report.

Worker Albert "Frenchy" Gales was atop the unfinished south tower at the time of a June 1935 earthquake. He remembered, "the tower swayed 16 feet each way. There were 12 or 13 guys on top with no way to get down... The whole thing would sway toward the ocean, guys would say, 'here we go!' Then it would sway back toward the bay."

Days after a tragic accident that killed ten workers, searchers recovered the giant safety netthat had also fallen from the bridge. Tides had carried it a mile out into the Pacific Ocean, and 500 feet beneath the surface. They found tangled in it the body of one of the victims, a carpenter named Arthur Anderson.

After Construction:The bridge's original, two-tone fog horns functioned for almost half a century. In 1985, bridge officials replaced them with new air horns that only sound single tones.

The two main cables of the bridgeweigh 11,000 tons apiece, and each main cable contains 25,572 separate wires.

The amount of concrete used on the bridge would be sufficient to build two 10-foot-wide sidewalks from Chicago to Omaha.

The initial car toll in 1937 was 50 cents (a whopping $6.25 in 2002 dollars). By 2004, the car toll had risen to $5.00, or $4.00 with an electronic transponder —but tolls are only collected from vehicles heading south into San Francisco.

The month of December has historically brought the most dangerous winds. Officials have closed the bridge only three times due to wind, in the Decembers of 1951 (69 mph winds), 1982 (70 mph winds), and 1983 (75 mph winds). None of the gusts caused structural damage.