How the Golden Gate Bridge Was Built: 80,000 Miles of Wire in Four Years

When the Golden Gate Bridge opened in May 1937, its towers stood 746 feet above a mile-wide strait that many had said could never be bridged, and its two cables held about 80,000 miles of wire. This documentary tells the whole story of how it was built: the ferries and the court fights, the bond vote of 1930 in the Great Depression, Joseph Strauss, Charles Ellis and the architect Irving Morrow, the south tower raised in open water, the cables spun by the Roebling company, the safety net and the eleven men who died, and the opening days of May 1937. Clear narration over photographs and film from open archives. The whole story, told in order from start to finish. Chapters 00:00 Pedestrian Day 01:36 The Ferries 02:43 The Engineer from Chicago 04:14 Years of Argument 05:47 A New Design 07:47 The Vote 09:19 The Banker 11:18 The North Tower 12:21 The South Tower 15:25 International Orange 16:28 Spinning the Cables 18:23 The Net 20:47 February 1937 22:21 Opening Day 24:25 Strauss and Ellis 25:28 Fifty Years Later Pictures from Wikimedia Commons, in order of appearance: "Golden Gate Bridge and San Francisco skyline from Hawk Hill at Blue…" by Daniel L. Lu (user:dllu) (CC BY-SA 4.0); "Details Golden Gate Bridge 04 2015 SFO 1922" by Mariordo (Mario Roberto Durán Ortiz) (CC BY-SA 4.0); "Rivets on the Golden Gate bridge in San Francisco 103" by Guillaume Paumier (CC BY-SA 3.0); "Suspension (4641577406)" by Dave Nakayama (CC BY 2.0); "San Francisco, Golden Gate Bridge, CA USA - panoramio" by MARELBU (CC BY 3.0); "Beneath the Golden Gate Bridge 2023-07-19" by The wub (CC BY-SA 4.0); "Golden Gate (23811194984)" by wolfgang.mller54 (CC BY 2.0); "Rivets on the Golden Gate bridge in San Francisco 106" by Guillaume Paumier (CC BY-SA 3.0); "Eureka-1" by Almonroth (CC BY-SA 3.0); "Frederick L Hovde Hall of Administration Purdue University 2016 01" by Julian Herzog (CC BY 4.0); "Golden Gate Bridge 1988" by Squishyt (CC BY-SA 4.0); "34 SAM 2539 (4842323144)" by Alec Perkins (CC BY 2.0). License texts: creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0, creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0, creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0, creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0, creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0.