Why was the Golden Gate Bridge so famous?

Acclaimed as one of the world's most beautiful bridges, there are many different elements to the Golden Gate Bridge that make it unique. With its tremendous towers, sweeping cables, and great span, the Bridge is a sensory beauty and engineering wonder featuring color, sound and light.



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5 Fun Facts About the Golden Gate Bridge
  • The bridge is actually not golden at all! It's a bright red-orange.
  • It was named one of the Seven Wonders of the Modern World.
  • It took four years to build.
  • There are approximately 600,000 rivets in each of the bridge's towers.
  • It's the most photographed bridge in the world.


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As such, the Golden Gate Bridge became known as 'the bridge that couldn't be built'. This was due to the complex challenges presented by the strait: strong tides, wind, fog and the San Andreas Fault located just 7 miles offshore.

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Once called “the bridge that couldn't be built,” today the Golden Gate Bridge is one the seven wonders of the modern world. This magnificent span, perhaps San Francisco's most famous landmark, opened in 1937 after a four-year struggle against relentless winds, fog, rock and treacherous tides.

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The Golden Gate Bridge is closely monitored to make sure it does not exceed its stress limits due to traffic, wind and seismic loads. We can look forward to at least another 80 years of this engineering masterpiece.

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According to the book The World Without Us by Alan Weisman, suspension and truss bridges would collapse after two or three centuries without maintenance. The cause would be rust eventually filling the expansion joints, causing damage during hot weather.

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With great fanfare, people from all over the world came to pay homage to the Bridge, become part of a historical celebration and create lifelong memories. The day began as “Bridgewalk '87” reenacted “Pedestrian Day '37” and an estimated 300,000 people surged onto the roadway.

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With the earlier phases of the retrofit complete, the bridge can safely withstand an earthquake over 7.0 in magnitude, but it may experience damage that requires closure after a major seismic event.

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The Golden Gate Bridge opened May 27, 1937 when more than 200,000 pedestrians crowded the roadway before vehicle traffic opened the next day. It was an instant financial, transportation, economic and engineering success, and maybe a little too successful.

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Olson has noted that the Golden Gate is a particularly lethal means of killing oneself: While the average survival rate of bridge deaths is 15%, only 4% of people who jump from the Golden Gate survive.

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The Golden Gate Bridge is closely monitored to make sure it does not exceed its stress limits due to traffic, wind and seismic loads. We can look forward to at least another 80 years of this engineering masterpiece. (Top image: Courtesy Getty Images.)

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Bonds Paid Off. The last of the construction bonds was retired in 1971, with $35 million in principal and nearly $39 million in interest being paid entirely from Bridge tolls.

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Great Pyramid of Giza The Great Pyramid, the only Wonder that still exists, stood as the world's tallest human-made structure for nearly 4,000 years. Erected around 2560 B.C.E. on the west bank of the Nile River, the Great Pyramid served as the tomb of the fourth-century pharaoh Khufu (Cheops).

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