1. The Golden Gate Bridge Presented by: The Third Row Six Presenters:
Brett Portner-Kuhlow
Scott Tumm

2. Important Dates
1920: A feasibility Study recommends construction of the Golden Gate Bridge
1923: The State Legislature Passes the Golden Gate Bridge and Highway District Act of California into Law
1930: Joseph Strauss, Chief Engineer submits his final plans for the bridge
January 5, 1933: Construction of the bridge begins

3. February 1933: Anchorages are completed
June 1935: The towers are completed
March 1936: The suspension cables are completed
April 1937: The deck surface is completed

4. Official Pedestrian Day:
May 27, 1937
Bridge opens for traffic:
May 28, 1937

5. Spanning the Golden Gate
The entrance to San Francisco Bay was named the ‘Golden Gate’ by early settlers
One mile wide gap
60 Mph wind tunnel like gusts of wind for much of the year
2.5 Million cubic feet of water per second pass through the Golden Gate
Currents
Earthquakes

6. Project Management Before the Manhattan Project
James Reed General Manager
Joseph Strauss
Chief Engineer

7. Joseph Strauss: Chief Engineer

8. Strauss the Man Rude Short-tempered Arrogant
Labeled ‘brilliant bully’ by his peers
-Strauss thought big. His graduate thesis proposed a 50 mile long bridge across the Bering Strait that would connect Siberia and Alaska.

9. Scope
Build a bridge spanning the Golden Gate -Must be tall enough for ships to pass underneath

10. Time
There was no real set timetable; managers ensured the project progressed as quickly as possible.

11. Cost
$73,000,000

12. Financial Facts $35 million in bonds $38 million in interest
Bridge completely paid off on June 30, 1971
Bridge completely paid for by tolls
No state or federal money went into the bridge
Bank of America extended a $5 million line of credit to the bridge project
People put up their homes, farms and businesses as collateral for the bridge to generate the $35 million in bond issue
Presently, bridge still operates only with money collected from tolls

13. To Build a Bridge
Strauss spent three years researching his first design
He assembled a team of engineers to create the final design
Strauss expected that three dozen workers would die during the construction, about one for every one million dollars spent on the construction
11 deaths occurred

14. Black Wednesday: February 17, 1937
A scaffold slipped off the bridge and through the protective netting below, taking ten men to their deaths.

15. Safety Under Strauss 1st Mandatory use of hard hats
Issuing of safety belts and tie off lines
Dizzy riveters: respirators for burning paint fumes
Riveters and ironworkers required to wear leather gloves
Sun goggles, sun-block lotion
Field hospital at south end staffed full time; treated 12,000 injuries by December, 1935.
No deaths for the first 3 years and 8 months of project

16. The Net
$120,000 Safety net suspended 60 feet below the road surface: nineteen men saved

17. The ‘Halfway to Hell’ Club
Nineteen official members, some jumped for fun
Named by tabloids looking for a story
First official member hit the ground as well, broke four vertebrae

18. Unexpected Delays and Challenges
Temporary trestle knocked over twice
The ten day San Francisco Strike
Fort Point

19. Fort Point Located directly under south end of bridge
Historians and the community in general protested to preserve the fort

20. Records held by the Bridge (in 1937)
Longest bridge
Tallest free standing structure in the world (over 740 feet)

21. Golden Gate Fun Facts
Riveting crew held unofficial speed contests; they sometimes threw red-hot rivets distances of 70 feet or more
80,000 miles of pencil diameter steel cable in bridge
Steel for the bridge was made in Pennsylvania and ‘shipped’ to California via the Panama Canal
$75,000 paid in tolls each day
A gold rivet was hammered into place to celebrate the completion of the bridge
‘International Orange’
Blind woman and guide dog the first pedestrians ever to cross the bridge
1.25 billion cars have crossed bridge since ’37
Bridge ‘Firsts’
First person to cross on stilts
First person to cross sticking tongue out all the way
First wooden hat to cross the bridge
Each anchorage weighs as much as 17,000 elephants

22. References
Barter, James. The Golden Gate Bridge. San Diego: Lucent Books, 2001.
The Golden Gate Bridge. Narr. Jack Perkins. Videocassette. A&E Home Video, 1994.
Strauss, Joseph. The Golden Gate Bridge. San Francisco: Golden Gate Bridge and Highway District, 1938.
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.