The Golden Gate Bridge, a feat of modern engineering during the Great Depression, opened to the public on this day in historyMay 27, 1937.
“The greatest task that ever tested the genius, courage and will of man has been accomplished,” J. Lawrence Toole wrote in the official souvenir program for the bridge’s opening.
“After nearly a century of dreaming, decades of discussion and five years of heroic work, the bridge stands here, the noblest steel structure on this planet,” he said.
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“The Golden Gate Bridge Fiesta”, one week series of events to celebrate the bridge, began at 6 a.m. on May 27, the souvenir program said.
“With eager anticipation, San Franciscans and citizens of the Redwood Empire I looked forward to the day when the mighty Golden Gate Bridge would be open to global traffic,” said a welcome message from San Francisco Mayor Angelo Joseph Rossi, printed in the program.
Pedestrians cross the Golden Gate Bridge on opening day, May 27, 1937. (Getty Images)
“May the bridge be a bond, uniting us forever in bonds of brotherhood,” he also said, thanking those who joined the city in “funding this incomparable structure.”
While the bridge would primarily be used to transport motor vehicles across the Golden Gate since San Francisco In Marin County, the first day of the bridge’s official opening was pedestrian-only.
An estimated 18,000 people were waiting to cross the bridge before it opened to pedestrian traffic, the Golden Gate Bridge Highway and Transportation District website notes.
This number did not slow down as the day went on. An estimated 15,000 people crossed the Golden Gate Bridge every hour on opening day, about 200,000 in total.
The Golden Gate Bridge in 2023. The iconic span opened to the public on this historic day in 1937. (Tayfun Coskun/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images)
On opening day, each pedestrian had to pay a toll of 25 cents to cross the bridge (the equivalent of about $5.30 in 2023) – and “dozens of hot dog stands lined the roadway” to feed hungry pedestrians, specifies the same site.
In 2023, crossing the Golden Gate Bridge is free.
Still, cars pay a $9.40 toll to get to San Francisco, the Golden Gate Bridge website says.
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The Golden Gate Bridge is 1.7 miles from abutment to abutment, this website also states, with a span between the two towers of 4,200 feet.
At the time of its dedication, the Golden Gate Bridge had the longest span in the world, which Toole called “the final accomplishment of an engineering achievement without equal or comparison” in the souvenir program.
The Golden Gate Bridge was opened on this historic day, May 25, 1937. (DeAgostini/Getty Images)
“To any stranger who sees him for the first time, the wonder of his size, his beauty and his grace will remain an everlasting memory,” Toole wrote.
“We will tell them its story and we will amaze them. Generation after generation, the history and enchantment of the Golden Gate Bridge will be passed on by all those who fall under its spell.”
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In addition to the first pedestrians to cross the bridge on foot, several other “firsts” in the bridge’s history took place on May 27.
The span of the Golden Gate Bridge between its two towers was the longest in the world when it opened on May 27, 1937. Today, the Akashi-Kaikyo Bridge in Japan holds this title. (Getty Images)
A man named Florentine Calegeri crossed the bridge and returned on stilts.
And two sisters were also the first to rollerblade across the Golden Gate Bridge, the Golden Gate Bridge website says.
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Additionally, 11-year-old Anna Marie Anderson was the first child to be lost, and then found, on the Golden Gate Bridge, according to the San Francisco Chronicle.
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