Construction Timeline Golden Gate Bridge

December 1932 to April 1937

Additional KEY DATES in the History of the Golden Gate Bridge

December 22, 1932: Extending from Fort Baker pier, the construction of a 1,700 foot-long access road began to access the construction sites for the Marin anchorage, pier and tower.

January 5, 1933: Construction officially started.

January 1933 to February 1936: Marin and San Francisco anchorages and associated pylons.

January 1933 to May 1935: San Francisco anchorage.

January 1933 to June 1933: Marin pier.

January 1933 to June 1935: Marin anchorage.

February 1933: Work began on the east approach road from San Francisco that extended through the Presidio to the south end of the Golden Gate Bridge.

March 1933: Steel for the San Francisco and Marin towers that was prefabricated in Bethlehem steel foundries in Pottstown and Steelton, PA was brought by flatcar to Philadelphia and transferred to barges and shipped through the Panama Canal to Alameda, CA where it was stored until the Marin pier was completed and ready for tower erection.

March 1933 to March 1934: San Francisco tower access trestle was constructed extending 1100 feet offshore. Just as the trestle was completed, it was significantly damaged for the first time on August 14, 1933, when the McCormick Steamship Line’s Sidney M. Hauptman plowed through the thick fog and crashed into the access trestle, damaging about 400 feet. After repairs were made, on December 13, 1933, as a southwest gale battered the Golden Gate Strait for two days, the access trestle was again battered and this time there was 800 feet of wreckage. Trestle repairs began shortly thereafter and completed March 8, 1934.

November 7, 1933: Marin tower construction started. Depending on the source referenced, it was completed either on June 28, 1934 or sometime in November 1934.

October 24, 1934: San Francisco fender wall completed.

November 27, 1934: San Francisco pier area within the fender wall was un-watered.

January 3, 1935: San Francisco pier reached its final height of 44 feet above the water.

January 1935 to June 28, 1935: San Francisco tower construction.

August 2, 1935 to September 27, 1935: Harbor Tug and Barge Company strung the first wire cables to support the footwalks (aka catwalks) constructed across the Golden Gate Strait in preparation for main cable spinning.

October 1935 to May 1936: Main cable spinning and compression.

April 1936: Start of the Sausalito lateral approach road which was constructed as a W.P.A. project.

July 1936 to December 14, 1936: Suspended structure.

July 21, 1936: Start of San Francisco approach viaduct structures and Fort Point arch construction.

November 18, 1936: Two sections of the Bridge’s main span were joined in the middle. A brief ceremony marked the occasion when groups from San Francisco and Marin met and exchanged remarks at the center of the span. Major Thomas L. McKenna, Catholic Chaplin of Fort Scott, blessed the span while sprinkling holy water.

January 19, 1937 to April 19, 1937: Roadway.

References: Golden Gate Bridge, Report of the Chief Engineer by Joseph Strauss, 1937 (no longer sold) and Spanning the Gate by Stephen Cassady, 1986

Concept for a Bridge Across the Golden Gate Strait

In 1916, more than four decades after railroad entrepreneur Charles Crocker’s call for a bridge across the Golden GateStrait* (Strait) in 1872, James H. Wilkins, a structural engineer and newspaper editor for the San Francisco Call Bulletin, captured the attention of San Francisco City Engineer Michael M. O’Shaughnessy.

In August 1919, City officials formally requested that O’Shaughnessy explore the possibility of building a bridge that crossed the Golden Gate Strait. O’Shaughnessy began to consult a number of engineers across the United States about feasibility and cost of building a bridge across the strait. Most speculated that a bridge would cost over $100 million and that one could not be built. But it was Joseph Baermann Strauss that came forward and said such a bridge was not only feasible, but could be built for $25 to $30 million.

On June 28, 1921, Strauss submitted his preliminary sketches to O’Shaughnessy and Edward Rainey, Secretary to the Mayor of San Francisco, the Honorable James Rolph. The cost estimate for his original design, a symmetrical cantilever-suspension hybrid span (click here for an article about the original design) was $17 million.

It took O’Shaughnessy a year and one-half to release the cantilever-suspension hybrid bridge design to the public. During this time, Strauss went about promoting the idea of a bridge, using his original design, in communities throughout northern California. Strauss dedicated himself to convincing civic leaders that the span was not only feasible but it could be paid with toll revenues alone. His energies paid off, as once his design was made public by O’Shaughnessy in December 1922, the public voiced little opposition, even though it was described as “ugly” by the local press.

Strauss was the steadfast believer who organized the political, financial, and promotional efforts to build the Bridge. The time was right to span the Strait as population centers were growing and traffic congestion at the ferry docks was becoming intolerable. By1929, motor vehicle travel via ferry had exploded, with demand exceeding available capacity. But there were no federal or state funds available to build a bridge because the construction of the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge had already received the limited federal funds available.

1928 Special District is Formed

1930 Bond Measure Passes

*The Golden Gate Strait is the entrance to the San Francisco Bay from the Pacific Ocean. The strait is approximately three-miles long by one-mile wide with currents ranging from 4.5 to 7.5 knots. It is generally accepted that the Strait was named “Chrysopylae” or Golden Gate by John C. Frémont, Captain, Topographical Engineers of the U.S. Army circa 1846. It reminded him of the harbor Byzantium in Istanbul named Chrysoceras or Golden Horn.