HISTORY54 - Golden Gate Bridge

Pat and I will be touring Muir’s Woods, and Yosemite, Kings Canyon, and Sequoia National Parks next month, starting in San Francisco.  I posted a blog about the history of these parks, “John Muir’s California,” on December 23, 2021.  This blog will cover the history of the Golden Gate Bridge, which we will cross on Day 1 of our tour.

 

After a short introduction, I’ll cover the period before the bridge was built, including the history of the Golden Gate Strait, Fort Point, early ferry service across the strait, and obstacles to building the bridge.  Then, I’ll discuss the design and financing of the bridge, and the building of the bridge – including a construction timeline.  Next, I’ll describe the completed bridge, the men who built the bridge, and end with some additional interesting facts about the bridge.

My principal sources include The Gate:  The True Story of the Design and Construction of the Golden Gate Bridge by John van der Zee; “Golden Gate” and “Golden Gate Bridge,” Wikipedia; “Golden Gate Bridge,” history.com; “A History of the Golden Gate Bridge,” theculturetrip.com; “Golden Gate Bridge Chronology,” pbs.org; “Key Dates in Bridge District History,” goldengate.org; “Golden Gate Bridge Fast Facts,” cnn.com; “21 Must Know Facts About the Golden Gate Bridge, San Francisco,” reckontalk.com; plus numerous other online sources.

Introduction

The Golden Gate Bridge is a suspension bridge spanning the Golden Gate Strait, the one-mile-wide entrance to San Francisco Bay from the Pacific Ocean.  The structure links the U.S. city of San Francisco, California - the northern tip of the San Francisco Peninsula – to the Golden Gate National Recreation Area in Marin County, carrying both U.S. Route 101 and California State Route 1 across the strait.  Being declared one of the Wonders of the Modern World by the American Society of Civil Engineers, the bridge is one of the most internationally recognized symbols of San Francisco and California.  The Frommer's travel guide describes the Golden Gate Bridge as "possibly the most beautiful, certainly the most photographed, bridge in the world.” 

 

The San Francisco Bay area with the location of the Golden Gate Bridge indicated

 

Before the Bridge

Golden Gate Strait.  During the last ice age, when the sea level was several hundred feet lower, the waters of the glacier-fed Sacramento River and the San Joaquin River scoured a deep channel through the bedrock on their way to the ocean.  Today, the strait is about 3 miles long, from 1 to 3 miles wide, and 372 feet deep in mid channel, and is well known for its depth and powerful tidal currents from the Pacific Ocean.  Many small whirlpools and eddies can form in its waters.  With its strong currents, rocky reefs, and fog, the Golden Gate Strait is the site of over 100 shipwrecks.

The strait is often shrouded in fog, especially during the summer.  Heat generated in the California Central Valley causes air there to rise, creating a low-pressure area that pulls in cool, moist air from over the Pacific Ocean.  The Golden Gate forms the largest break in the hills of the California Coast Range of mountains, allowing a persistent, dense stream of fog to enter the bay.  The area has a Mediterranean climate, with very narrow temperature fluctuations, cool summers and mild winters.

European Discovery.  The strait was surprisingly elusive for early European explorers, presumably due to persistent summer fog.  The strait is not recorded in the voyages of Juan Rodríguez Cabrillo nor Francis Drake, both of whom may have explored the nearby coast in the 16^th century in search of the fabled Northwest Passage.  The strait is also unrecorded in observations by Spanish galleons returning from the Philippines that laid up in nearby Drakes Bay to the north.

The actual European discovery of the strait was made in 1769 by a land party led by Spaniard Francisco de Ortega.  In 177,5 the San Carlos, navigated by Spanish naval officer Juan Manuel de Ayala, was the first European ship to sail through the strait, anchoring in a cove behind Angel Island in San Francisco Bay.

Until the 1840s, the strait was called the "Boca del Puerto de San Francisco" (Mouth of the Port of San Francisco).  The name Golden Gate was given in 1846 by American explorer, Captain John C. Fremont, in analogy to the Golden Horn of the Bosporus (Turkey) when he visualized rich cargoes from the Orient flowing through the strait.

Fort Point.  In 1769, Spain occupied the San Francisco area, and by 1776, had established the area's first European settlement, with a mission and a presidio.  To protect against encroachment by the British and Russians, Spain selected a promontory located at the narrowest part of the strait (San Francisco Bay's entrance), to construct a fortification, completed in 1794.

Mexico won independence from Spain in 1821, gaining control of the region and the fort, but in 1835 the Mexican army moved to Sonoma leaving the fort to crumble in the wind and rain.  

Following the United States' victory in the War with Mexico in 1848, California was annexed by the U.S. and became a state in 1850.  The gold rush of 1849 caused rapid settlement of the area, which was recognized as commercially and strategically valuable to the United States.  Military officials soon recommended a series of fortifications to secure San Francisco Bay.  Coastal defenses were built, including at the abandoned fort, now called “Fort Point,” guarding the Golden Gate Strait.

A new masonry seacoast fort was completed by the United States Army on the old site in 1861, just before the American Civil War, , to defend San Francisco Bay against hostile warships.  Seventy-two years later, Fort Point would become the site of the southern approach to the Golden Gate Bridge.

 

Fort Point, at the southern end of the future Golden Gate Bridge, 1891.

 

Ferry Service.  Before the Golden Gate Bridge was built, the only practical short route between San Francisco and what is now Marin County was by boat across a section of San Francisco Bay.  A ferry service began as early as 1820, with a regularly scheduled service beginning in the 1840s, for the purpose of transporting water to San Francisco from the springs at Sausalito.

Following the Gold Rush boom that began in 1849, speculators realized that the Marin County land north of the bay would increase in value in direct proportion to its accessibility to the city.  The Sausalito Land and Ferry Company began its ferry service, aboard the Princess, a sidewheeler, on May 10, 1868.  It made five round trips a day. Eventually, the ferry service came under the control of the Southern Pacific Railroad.  The ferry service became the Golden Gate Ferry Company, a Southern Pacific Railroad subsidiary, the largest ferry operation in the world by the late 1920s.

Once for railroad passengers and customers only, Southern Pacific's automobile ferries became very profitable and important to the regional economy.  The ferry crossing between the Hyde Street Pier in San Francisco and the Sausalito Ferry Terminal in Marin County took approximately 20 minutes and cost $1.00 per vehicle.  The trip from the San Francisco Ferry Building took 27 minutes.

Obstacles.  In the late 19^th century, San Francisco was one of the fastest developing cities in the United States, but it hit a major speed bump as it started to emerge into a major city center.  With a lack of quick, reliable transportation (especially after the development of the affordable car in the early 20^th century), the city stagnated and stopped growing.  Although the ferry service was popular at the time, many locals called for a bridge to be constructed to connect San Francisco to Marin County across the Golden Gate Strait, so that people could travel more easily and quickly.  

Many experts said that a bridge could not be built across the 6,700-foot strait, which had strong, swirling tides and currents, with water 372 feet deep at the center of the channel, and frequent strong winds. Experts said that ferocious winds and blinding fogs would prevent construction and operation.

John van der Zee, in his book about the design and construction of the bridge, described the situation eloquently:

“The natural obstacles were compounded by other difficulties, mechanical, social, and political.  The Golden Gate was the lone entrance to one of the world’s great harbors, and no bridge had ever been built at a harbor entrance before.  Not only would the bridge have to be anchored deep enough to survive tides and ocean waves, it would have to be tall enough for the largest ships to pass beneath its roadbed at high tide.  There were naval bases inside the bay and army installations on either side of the Gate; any structure built here would require the approval of the departments of Army, Navy, and War.  How were the functions of a great seaport to be carried on while a construction project, which undoubtedly would take years, cluttered its mouth?  In the event of war, couldn’t a single well-placed bomb send a bridge roadway here crashing down to block the entire port?  There were also aesthetic considerations.  The Golden Gate represented one of the earth’s most dramatic meeting places of land and water.  Was a man-made structure erected here, altering the landscape forever, a wise choice?  Was expansion by this means really in San Francisco’s best interests, or would it help destroy the fragile uniqueness of the city and make expansion alone its strongest characteristic, as in Los Angeles?”

Design and Financing 

In 1916, after considering an impractical and very costly (over $100 million) bridge design, San Francisco’s City Engineer asked bridge engineers if a more practical bridge could be built for reasonable cost.

It would take 17 years to achieve such a design for the bridge, secure adequate financing during a time of economic depression, and to convince officials and the public that the bridge should and could indeed be built.

Chicago-based drawbridge engineer Joseph Strauss, an ambitious engineer, poet, and tireless promoter responded to the request for a practical design, offering initial drawings for a massive cantilever (a long projecting beam or girder fixed at only one end) on each side of the strait, connected by a central suspension segment.  He believed he could complete the grand scale project for a modest $25-30M.

Strauss’s experience was mostly in bridge designs for streets, highways, railways, and rivers, but nothing on the scale of this project.  According to author van der Zee, “Strauss’s original design for the Golden Gate Bridge was a ponderous, ugly structure of mixed parentage, based on erroneous survey information and precious little actual engineering.”

Joseph Strauss’s original design for the Golden Gate Bridge combined cantilevers on both ends with a suspension bridge in the center.

 

But Straus proudly patented his design and campaigned eight years for it, drumming up support in Northern California.  The bridge faced opposition, including litigation, from many sources.  The Department of War was concerned that the bridge would interfere with ship traffic.  The U.S. Navy feared that a ship collision or sabotage to the bridge could block the entrance to one of its main harbors. Unions demanded guarantees that local workers would be favored for construction jobs.  Southern Pacific Railroad, one of the most powerful business interests in California, opposed the bridge as competition to its ferry fleet, and filed a lawsuit against the project, leading to a mass boycott of the ferry service.

In May 1924, in an atmosphere of overwhelming support for the bridge, the Secretary of War approved a proposal to use federal land (at each end of the proposed bridge) for construction of the bridge structure and approach roads, leading to the formation of the "Bridging the Golden Gate Association.”  Both San Francisco County and Marin County, pending further bridge plans by Strauss, also approved.  Another ally was the fledgling automobile industry, which supported the development of roads and bridges to increase demand for automobiles.

The bridge's name became official with the passage of the Golden Gate Bridge and Highway District Act by the state legislature, creating a special district to design, build, and finance the bridge. 

The next five years were frustrating for Strauss as the adequacy of his bridge design came into question, the need for additional survey and foundation planning was evident, the Great Depression was on the horizon, and politics as usual slowed progress.  Moreover, in the twenty years between 1915 and 1935, the science and art of bridge design in America underwent greater change than in the entire previous century.

In 1929, in order to be appointed chief engineer of the Golden Gate Bridge, Strauss realized that he would have to guarantee, that other bridge engineers of the highest reputation were willing to serve with him as advisors.  Officials did appoint Strauss as chief engineer, Strauss did assemble a talented team, but his original bridge design was discarded in favor of new methods and technology.

Joseph Strauss, Chief Engineer of the Golden Gate Bridge design and construction.

 

The new bridge engineering team soon included:

Leon S. Moisseiff, a Latvian immigrant and a leading suspension bridge engineer, who scrapped Strauss’s original hybrid bridge design in favor of a suspension span.

Charles Ellis, a professor at the University of Illinois, structural engineer, and mathematician, who worked out the complex engineering equations as the primary structural designer of the Golden Gate Bridge.  Ellis also wrote the specifications for all-ten bridge construction prime contracts, and designed the San Francisco entrance to the bridge that left room to preserve old Fort Point.

Irving F. Morrow, a local San Francisco architect, who conceptualized the art deco towers, selected a paint color he dubbed “International Orange,” and designed the bridge’s lighting scheme.

In August, 1930, Strauss submitted the final plans for the Golden Gate Bridge, and directed Ellis to begin the thousands of detail calculations involving suspension ropes, decks, floor beams, highway track, cables, towers, and more.  Under pressure from bridge management officials to complete the calculations, Straus badgered Ellis to finish his work, and finally fired him (unfairly, in expert opinion today) in December, 1931.

Photo, looking west, illustrating the final design of the Golden Gate Bridge.  The 4,200 -foot center suspension span and road deck are supported by two long horizontal main cables (and numerous vertical secondary cables), passing over two gigantic towers.  The north tower is positioned on the shoreline; the south tower is positioned 1,100 feet off the south shore.  The towers are supported by strong piers.  The main cables are secured by massive anchorages buried in the ground on each side of the bridge.  A viaduct reaches out from the San Francisco side, passing over old Fort Point, extending to the south cable anchorage.  A trestle extends out from that anchorage to the south suspension tower.  Similarly, a shorter viaduct, extends out from the Marin side to the north anchorage, and a trestle extends out to the north suspension tower. 

 

Author van der Zee summarizes the final design of the Golden Gate Bridge:

“This bridge, as designed, was a statement of faith in the future, radiating confidence amid the bleakest of American economic times.  The country, this bridge declared, was not at the end of things economically any more than it was geographically, but instead at the beginning of something new, unobstructed by the past, with renewed aspirations to excellence.”

In November, 1932, the officials awarded the initial contracts totaling $23,843,905 for the construction of the Golden Gate Bridge.

Meanwhile, financing of the bridge was facing difficulties.  After the Wall Street Crash of 1929, the Golden Gate Bridge and Highway District, the official entity to design, construct, and finance the Golden Gate Bridge, was unable to raise the construction funds, so it lobbied for a $35 million bond measure.  The bonds were approved in November 1930, by voters in the counties affected by the bridge.  However, the District was unable to sell the bonds until 1932, when Amadeo Giannini, the founder of San Francisco-based Bank of America, agreed on behalf of his bank to buy the entire issue in order to help the local economy.

Building the Bridge

Construction of the Golden Gate Bridge started on January 5, 1933.  The bridge would be complete, and opened for pedestrian and vehicle traffic in four and half years, in May 1937.

Joseph Strauss, Chief Engineer, had never before proposed the building of a suspension bridge, and had also never supervised the construction of one.  In February, 1933, Straus hired highly respected Russell G. Cone, a 36-year-old engineer, as his Director of Construction, working under Strauss and his assistant Clifford Paine, to oversee the day-to-day construction of the bridge.  Cone had lots of experience in suspension bridge construction and was then working for the Modjeski & Chase Company.

In October, 1935 Clifford Paine essentially took over the duties of on-site Chief Engineer, while Strauss maintained his role at a distance.

Timeline of Construction.  Here is a timeline of the major events in constructing the Golden Gate Bridge:

January 5, 1933:  Construction begins.  Workers excavate three and a quarter million cubic feet of dirt to establish the bridge's huge 12-story tall viaduct anchorages on each side of the strait.

February 1933:  Workers complete the two anchorages.  These colossal blocks, of steel-reinforced concrete, secured the main cables at each end of the bridge.

June 1933:  Workers complete the north pier, the foundation for the north tower, on the Marin shore.  The pier extends 44 feet above the waterline.

August 14, 1933:  The attempt to build what would be the south tower pier in the open ocean proved an immense challenge.  As a 1,100-foot trestle extended off the San Francisco side, divers plunged to depths of 90 feet through strong currents to blast away rock and remove detonation debris for the pier.  The McCormick Steamship Line’s cargo vessel Sidney M. Hauptman, outbound to Portland, plowed through the thick fog and crashed into the newly completed access trestle.  The trestle was damaged, setting construction back five months.

May 1934:  Workers complete the north tower.

January 1935:  After agonizing difficulties trying to build in the middle of a turbulent ocean channel, workers - including a team of underwater divers - complete the south pier.

June 1935:  Workers complete south tower.

August 1935:  Workers install a dizzying catwalk high above the water.  Since the bridge's cables will be assembled in the air, the catwalk hangs three feet below the position of each cable.

August 2,1935:  For the first time since construction started, the Golden Gate Strait was closed to shipping.  Shipping was held up for 15 minutes while bridge workers strung the first tramway cable between the San Francisco and Marin towers as part of the operations to ready the span for the construction of catwalks that had to be constructed before cable spinning could begin.  Shipping was held while a barge sank a one-inch cable to the 350-foot bottom and the cable was hoisted into the air between the towers.

March 1936:  Workers complete spinning the suspension cables ahead of schedule, at a rate four times faster than expected.

June 1936:  The most dramatic safety feature in bridge-building history is introduced at the Golden Gate Bridge work site.  A large net was slung under the entire bridge, at a cost of over $130,000.  It hung 60 feet below the construction workers, and ultimately saved 19 lives.  Workers performed tasks more quickly and confidently, knowing the net was in place.  The men who survived falls into the net called themselves the "Halfway-to-Hell Club."

June 18, 1936:  Start of the construction of the main suspended structure.

July 21, 1936:  Start of the construction of the San Francisco (south) approach viaduct structure.

September 11, 1936:  The employment roll rose past the 1000 mark - the most at one time since construction started.

October 21, 1936:  The first worker was killed in the building of the bridge, crushed by a support beam that fell.

November 20, 1936:  The two sections of the Golden Gate Bridge's main span were joined.  A brief and informal ceremony marked the occasion when groups from San Francisco and Marin met and exchanged remarks at the center of the span.

February 17, 1937:  Eleven workers lost their lives when a platform holding 13 men fell off the bridge and through the safety net.  Two workers somehow survived the fall and the plunge into icy water.

April 15, 1937:  Construction of the bridge is complete.  Workers finished the deck surface.  It hung like a massive hammock between the two towers, suspended from the cables by 254 sets of vertical suspender cables (called ropes), each positioned 50 feet apart.  Despite delays, the bridge has taken only four and a half months longer to build than originally planned.

May 27, 1937:  The Golden Gate Bridge opened to pedestrians for the first time.  At 6am, 18,000 people waited to be the first to cross the bridge.  By the end of the day, 200,000 people had crossed.  San Francisco's week-long celebration was called "The Golden Gate Bridge Fiesta."

May 28, 1937:  The bridge opened to vehicles after President Franklin Roosevelt pressed a telegraph key in the White House announcing the occasion to the whole world.  In the first hours, 1,800 cars passed over the bridge.  By midnight, 32,300 vehicles and 19,350 pedestrians had crossed.

Selected photos from the construction and opening of the Golden Gate Bridge.

 

The Completed Golden Gate Bridge.  The total construction cost came in at $33,666,000, which included $27,125,000 for the construction of the structure, $2,050,000 for Engineering and Inspection, $423,000 for Administrative and Preliminary Expenses, and $4,068,000 for Financing.  The construction cost was higher than the initial construction bids because other items were included in the final cost, such as a toll plaza ($450,000), toll collection equipment ($72,000), tower elevators ($60,000), miscellaneous equipment ($45,000), and military replacements and improvements ($575,000).

At the time of its opening in 1937, the Golden Gate Bridge was both the longest and the tallest suspension bridge in the world, with a total length of 8,981 feet (1.7 miles) - with a main span of 4,200 feet, and a total height of 746 feet above the water.  Clearance below the bridge is 220 feet at high tide.

The bridge is 90 feet wide.  There are six driving lanes and two sidewalks.  The width of the driving lanes is 62 feet between curbs, and the sidewalks are 10 feet each.

The total weight of the bridge is 887,000 tons.  The bridge contains about 83,000 tons of steel and the towers weigh 44,000 tons each.

During construction of the bridge, over 1.2 million steel rivets were used to hold the bridge together; on average, one tower segment contains over 60,000 rivets. 

The two 7,650-foot main cables on the bridge were made from over 27,000 individual spun steel wires; over 80,000 miles worth of wire was used.  Each of the cables measured a little over 3 feet in diameter and weighed 12,000 tons.

Selected photos from the construction and opening of the Golden Gate Bridge.

 

The Men who Built the Bridge.  Chief engineer Joseph Strauss got credit for being the visionary who built the bridge, considered to be one of the foremost construction feats of the 20^th century.  Strauss also commonly gets credit for designing and building the Golden Gate Bridge.

But, as this blog makes clear, Strauss’s major contributions were as a visionary, tireless promoter, and choosing (sometimes under pressure from bridge management officials) outstanding men to do the brilliant, innovative nitty gritty bridge design and construction.  These largely unsung engineering heroes include Leon S. Moisseiff, Charles Ellis, Irving F. Morrow, and Russell G. Cone.

Joseph Strauss suffered a heart attack on March 28, 1938.  He died on May 16, 1938 in Los Angeles, California, at the age of 68 years - eleven days short of the first anniversary of the opening of the Golden Gate Bridge.

Leon Moisseiff died of a heart attack on September 3, 1943 at age 70 in Belmar, New Jersey.

Charles Ellis died on August 22, 1949 in Evanston, Illinois at the age of 72.  Whether he ever saw the completed Golden Gate Bridge prior to his death, is unknown.

Irving Morrow died on October 28, 1952 of a heart attack at the age of 68.in Oakland, California.

Russell Cone died of a heart attack in January 1971.

The Golden Gate Bridge, with the city of San Francisco and the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge in the background.

 

Additional Interesting Facts about the Golden Gate Bridge

Torsional Bracing Retrofit.  On December 1, 1951, a windstorm revealed swaying and rolling instabilities of the bridge.  In 1953 and 1954, the bridge was retrofitted with lateral and diagonal bracing that connected the lower chords of the two side trusses.  This bracing stiffened the bridge deck in torsion so that it would better resist the types of twisting that had destroyed the Tacoma Narrows Bridge in 1940.

Bridge Deck Replacement.  The original bridge used a concrete deck.  Salt, carried by fog or mist, reached the rebar, causing corrosion and concrete spalling.  From 1982 to 1986, the original bridge deck, in 747 sections, was systematically replaced with 40% lighter, and stronger, steel panels, over a period of 401 nights, without closing the roadway completely to traffic.  

Suspension Spans.  At the time of completion, the Golden Gate Bridge was the longest main span suspension bridge in the world at 4,200 feet.  It was surpassed in 1964 by the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge in New York City, with a main span of 4,260 feet.  Today, there are 18 bridges in the world with longer main suspension spans than the Gold Gate Bridge, with the 1915 Canakkale Bridge in Turkey having the longest main span at 6,637.1 feet.

Repainting.  Many people falsely believe that the Golden Gate Bridge is re-painted every few years, but in fact, a team of 38 painters is constantly touching up the paint, as it helps prevent the high salt content of the air from eroding the steel components of the bridge.

Traffic and Tolls.  The bridge carries about 112,000 vehicles per day according to the Golden Gate Bridge Highway and Transportation District.  When the Golden Gate Bridge opened in 1937, the toll was 50 cents per car, collected in each direction.  In 1968, the bridge was converted to only collect tolls from southbound traffic.  Today’s tolls are approaching $9 for non-carpool vehicles.

Suicides.  The Golden Gate Bridge is the most-used suicide site in the world.  The deck is about 245 feet above the water, and after a fall of four seconds, jumpers hit the water at around 75 mph.  After years of debate, and an estimated more than 1,500 deaths, suicide barriers, consisting of a stainless-steel net extending 20 feet from the bridge, and supported by structural steel 20 feet under the walkway, began to be installed in April 2017.   The project has been fraught with delays; the completion date for the Golden Gate Bridge net is now projected for 2023.

Wind.  The Golden Gate Bridge was designed to safely withstand winds of up to 68 mph.  Until 2008, the bridge was closed only three times because of high wind conditions.  As part of the installation of the suicide barrier, starting in 2019, the railings on the west side of the pedestrian walkway were replaced with thinner, more flexible slats, in order to improve the bridge's aerodynamic tolerance of high wind to 100 mph.

Seismic Vulnerability and Improvements.  Modern knowledge of the effect of earthquakes on structures led to a program to retrofit the Golden Gate Bridge to better resist seismic events.  A $392 million program was initiated to improve the structure's ability to withstand such an event with only minimal (repairable) damage.  Although the retrofit was initially planned to be completed in 2012, it is now expected to be complete in 2024.

At the Same Time.  Remarkably, at the same time that the Golden Gate Bridge was being built across the Gold Gate Strait, the San Francisco - Oakland Bay Bridge was being built across San Francisco Bay to connect San Francisco and Oakland.  Construction began on July 9, 1933, five months before work began on the Golden Gate Bridge.  The 4.46-mile complex of bridges opened on November 12, 1936, six months before the Golden Gate Bridge. 

Notable Recognition.  The Golden Gate Bridge has received many landmark designations and other notable distinctions over the years, primary because of its striking design, reflected by its unique and distinguishing architectural qualities and characteristics.  Here are some selected recognitions:

In 1955, the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) named the Golden Gate Bridge as one of the Seven Engineering Wonders of the World. 

In 1984, the ASCE named the bridge a National Civil Engineering Landmark. 

In 1990, the Golden Gate Bridge was designated by the State Office of National Preservation as a California Historical Landmark.  

In 1993, the Golden Gate Bridge received the Society of American Registered Architects’ Distinguished Building Award in recognition of enduring excellence in design. 

In 1994, the bridge was named one of Seven Civil Engineering Wonders of the United States by the ASCE, along with Hoover Dam, the Interstate Highway System, Kennedy Space Center, the Panama Canal, the Trans-Alaska Pipeline, and the World Trade Center. 

In 1995, Popular Mechanics Magazine and ASCE together declared the Golden Gate Bridge one of the Seven Wonders of the Modern World. 

In 1999, the bridge was designated as a San Francisco Landmark. 

In 2000, the Golden Gate Bridge was named the winner of the Second Annual Gustav Lindenthal Medal as the most significant engineering project of the twentieth century. 

In 2001, the ASCE named the Golden Gate Bridge one of the Civil Engineering Monuments of the Millennium, along with the Panama Canal; Kansai International Airport; Osaka, Japan; the Empire State Building; Hoover Dam; the Interstate Highway System, the California Water Project; the Eurotunnel Rail System; and the Chicago Wastewater System.

 

So, with this new knowledge in mind, Pat and I can’t wait to visit the Golden Gate Bridge.