Why the Golden Gate Bridge Was Built Over a Giant Rope Net

Why was the Golden Gate Bridge built over a giant rope net? Under its roadway, from 1936 to 1937, a manila net caught nineteen workers who fell from the steel, and on February 17, 1937, that same net tore and ten men died in the strait below. Bridge builders in the 1930s expected one man killed for every million dollars spent. For a thirty-five-million-dollar bridge, that meant thirty-five men. Chief engineer Joseph Strauss pushed his board to pay for a net that was "new and unusual," and the men on the steel started working faster with it under them. Ironworker Al Zampa fell, broke his back and went back to the job. Then a ten-ton stripping scaffold tore through the net, and Slim Lambert found himself tangled in it, sinking toward the bottom. Told from the chief engineer's report, the coroner's jury and the newspapers of February 1937. 0:00 A Rope Under the Road 1:32 The Price of a Bridge 3:52 Joseph Strauss Asks for a Net 5:46 What the Net Did to the Men 7:32 Al Zampa, Halfway to Hell 9:48 The Stripping Scaffold 12:00 Slim Lambert in the Water 14:05 Four Inquiries 16:02 Rewoven ▶ Watch next Mackinac Bridge: The Day Wall Street Said No (1953)    • Mackinac Bridge: The Day Wall Street Said ...   Empire State Building: The Day It Opened Mostly Empty (1931)    • Empire State Building: The Day It Opened M...   Sources Joseph B. Strauss, The Golden Gate Bridge: Report of the Chief Engineer (1938): https://archive.org/details/goldengat... Library of Congress, Historic American Engineering Record, Golden Gate Bridge (HAER CA-31): https://www.loc.gov/item/ca1355/ KQED Quest, "Life on the Gate: Working on the Golden Gate Bridge 1933–37": https://www.kqed.org/quest/36106/life... Smithsonian Magazine, "On This Day in 1933, the Lethal Construction of the Golden Gate Bridge Began": https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-... Healdsburg Tribune, February 20, 1937 (California Digital Newspaper Collection): https://cdnc.ucr.edu/?a=d&d=HT1937022... Sausalito News, February 19, 1937 (California Digital Newspaper Collection): https://cdnc.ucr.edu/?a=d&d=SN1937021... Congressional Record, September 9, 2003, p. E1745 (Al Zampa): https://www.congress.gov/108/crec/200... Further reading: The Golden Gate Bridge: Report of the Chief Engineer by Joseph B. Strauss (1938) Thumbnail photograph: Report of the Chief Engineer, Golden Gate Bridge and Highway District (1938). Archival photographs are labeled ARCHIVAL on screen with their source. Everything labeled VISUAL RECONSTRUCTION is AI-generated for illustration and is not a historical record. We check every fact against the sources above, but small errors can slip through; if you spot one, tell us in the comments with a source and we will correct it. #GoldenGateBridge #SanFrancisco #AmericanHistory #Engineering #1930s