In 1936, California opens what’s then the longest bridge in the world. Enough Bay Area residents want to experience the new Bay Bridge firsthand that attendance at the opening ceremony is so large it creates “the greatest traffic jam in the history of San Francisco,” according to the San Francisco Chronicle. Construction of the bridge – really two bridges — begins July 9, 1933. It costs $77 million to construct, including the Transbay Terminal. In the bridge’s first year, 9 million vehicles cross it. (More than 100 million cross it today.) Until 1962, cars drive in both directions on the top level with trains and trucks below.
Former President Herbert Hoover, former San Francisco Mayor Angelo Rossi and Chief Engineer C. H. Purcell attend the chain-cutting ceremony, which is commemorated in the November 1936 issue ofCalifornia Highways and Public Works. Gov. Frank Merriam officiates. Hoover calls it “the greatest bridge yet constructed in the world.” Merriam says:
“This bridge belongs to this generation. We built it and we shall pay for. But in a broader sense it belongs to the generations that are to come. When the youths of today become the citizens of tomorrow they will use it without cost. Accordingly, we dedicate it today to our own use and to theirs, hoping that they will receive it as a legacy of great worth and an indication of our desire to serve. May it always remain a thing of beauty and interest, an example of the genius and courage of the engineer, financier, builder and the people of California.”
Before melting through the golden chain with a blowtorch, the Republican governor reads a poem that concludes:
“There was never a land too distant nor ever a way too wide,
“But some man’s mind, insistent, reached out to the other side.
“They cleared the way, these heroes, for the march of future years.
“The march of Civilization-and they were its Pioneers.”
There’s a parade, several balls during a week of celebration. The bridge is brightly lit at night. It turns out to be just a warm-up for the opening of the Golden Gate Bridge six months later, which generates even grander parades and celebrations.
TOP Photo: San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge (State Library Image 2009-0593)