The Golden Gate Bridge should never have been built. The waters at the ocean entrance to San Francisco Bay were too menacing; the Gate was too wide to be spanned by a suspension bridge; the costs of so ambitious a project were too high for an economy in the midst of Depression. But impossible odds are fuel for the determination of a visionary engineer like Joseph Strauss, and danger is no more than a welcome companion to the steel-nerved bridgemen who willingly risk their lives to turn dreams such as his into reality. In 1916, the long fight for the Golden Gate Bridge began. Twenty-one years later, in May 1937, the impossible dream was a dazzling reality. The intervening years were filled with drama, disappointment and accomplishment. The Golden Gate required the largest underwater foundation piers ever built, the tallest towers and the longest, thickest cables. What's more, the foundation had to be sunk in the violent, pounding waters of the open sea. But the first, and in many ways most difficult challenge, was convincing Bay Area counties to lend their support to a $35 million construction bond issue in an era of breadlines and rampant unemployment..an undertaking that lasted nearly four times as long as the actual construction.

Spanning the Gate: The Golden Gate Bridge

Engineering & Transportation

Cassady, Stephen

Engineering

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Spanning the Gate: The Golden Gate Bridge