San Francisco’s Golden Gate Bridge Is Formally Opened
Galveston Daily News May 28th, 1937 pg.1 col.2

San Francisco. Cal., May 27. – AP – “The bridge that couldn’t be built,” a towering two-mile span across the Golden Gate, opened today with a mad rush of pedestrians across its deck and a mighty cheer that figuratively echoed up and down the pacific coast. Hailed as an achievement of the “impossible” and described mostly in superlatives, the $35,000,000 structure began its useful existence by bearing a milling army of visitors and San Franciscans all in fiesta mood. Chairman Arthur M. Brown of the fiesta committee said the number crossing the huge span was nearly 100,000 by midafternoon. He had expected only that many for the first 12 hours of operation ending at 6 p.m.

Nearly 25,000 persons rushed the toll plazas as a deep-voiced foghorn sounded the opening signal at 6 a.m. They let loose a shower of nickels at the coin boxes and rushed onto the great span from both approaches. From then on the huge deck swarmed all day with humanity, some individuals racing for honors and others lingering for their first view from solid footing above the center of the famous harbor entrance. Other uncounted thousands assembled on the San Francisco shore to witness a mammoth parade reviving the raw and hilarious days of the dons and the old West.

A threatened anti-nazi boycott of the huge parade failed to develop, although German consular officials lodged a protest with Mayor Angelo J. Rossi because two unidentified men tore down a swastika flag from the street decoration two days ago. Rossi offered apologies. Representatives of the powerful Maritime Federation of the Pacific, a unit embracing the West coast seagoing and longshore unions had threatened to boycott the parade unless the nazi flag was removed. Rossi refused to order it down.

Pedestrian day was designated as the prelude to the opening of the span to automobile traffic, scheduled for tomorrow, when highway traffic between San Francisco and the picturesque north coast are will [sic] have solid footing across the bay for the first time. Despite the bridge opening, the Southern Pacific Golden Gate ferries arranged to operate on holiday schedule to handle the swollen stream of highway traffic expected to develop. The bridge, expected to handle 3,000,000 vehicles the first year, has six lanes for automobiles and two for pedestrians.

Scale of Construction
San Francisco, Cal., May 27. – AP – If you like to take things apart and make them into something else, here is what you could do with the $35,000,000 Golden Gate bridge: Build a steel serpent 360 miles long by laying the rivets in the span head to toe:
Build two ten-foot sidewalks from Omaha to Chicago with the concrete:
Load a 20-mile freight train with the 100,000 tons of steel in the structure:
Weave the 80,000 miles of wire in the two 38 ½-inch cables into standard wire fence six feet high to border each side of a 1600-mile highway from Canada to Mexico. Each suspension tower is 746 feet high, 191 feet higher than the Washington monument.

Designed to withstand ocean storm, tide and earthquakes as severe as San Francisco ever has known, the bridge is deemed capable of supporting 430,000,000 pounds at one time. Its 4200-foot single suspension span, the longest in the world, is built so that storms coming in from the Pacific may sway it 21 feet out of line without injury. Heat and cold may contract or expand its huge steel mass so that he deck level may rise or fall ten feet without damage, its strength is in its flexibility. Its towers may lean a foot or more yet spring back into plumb position without incident. The towers, 746 feet high, are built of enormous steel cells to give this resiliency.

Years ago the bridge was conceived as an engineering impossibility. M. M. O’Shaughnessy, then San Francisco city engineer, however, asked Joseph B. Strauss, famous bridge builder, to design a plan for it. “O’Shaughnessy told me,” said Strauss, “that it couldn’t be done in the first place, and that even if it could, the cost would be $130,000,000,” which would not have been economical in view of the purpose to be served. But Strauss drew the plans in 1919.

For ten years engineers, lawyers, geologists and traffic experts battled over its legality and feasibility. Six Northern California counties finally banded together and voted a $35,000,000 bond issue for the job. The project came through a welter of lawsuits and technical skepticism and construction started a little more than four years ago.

Despite the erection of a unique safety net under the deck, 13 men lost their lives in the building but Strauss, the chief engineer, said the expected fatalities otherwise would have been 26. Strauss, who has built so many bridges about the world that he can’t remember where they all are now wants to bridge the Narrows, which would require a 6000-foot single span across the New York harbor entrance.

Completion of the Golden Gate span gives San Francisco the two greatest bridges. The $77,000,000 Bay Bridge, carrying traffic 8 ½ miles across the bay between San Francisco and Oakland, was opened last November. The fare is the same on both bridges, 50c for a car and five passengers. Pedestrians may cross the Golden Gate bridge for 5c. The Bay bridge has no pedestrian facilities.