The Golden Gate Bridge

In Beautiful San Francisco, California

In the early 19th century, the village of Yerba Buena overlooked a natural harbor along the Pacific Ocean. In 1848, a local carpenter found gold in northern California, ushering in the California Gold Rush. The village’s population quickly grew to 35,000. Several decades and a devastating earthquake later, the city, now called San Francisco, was looking for ways to ease the flow traffic across the bay. By the early 1920s, a bridge seemed like the natural solution—to some. Many San Franciscans resisted the idea of bridging their great harbor and obscuring their view of the sunset with a human-built structure. After years of debate over the need for a bridge, and concern over how such a big structure could safely be built, the construction project finally began in 1933. On May 27, 1937, the Golden Gate Bridge opened to pedestrian traffic, with 18,000 people waiting to walk across. Vehicles followed the next day.