Whitney’s 4th Grade Class The Golden Gate Bridge is one of California’s most famous landmarks. It is also one of the most famous bridges in the world. It opened to cars on May 28, 1937. The day before people were allowed to walk across it. There was a line of people waiting to cross by 6 a.m. that day. There were 18,000 people in the line. One man walked across the Bridge and back again on stilts the first day it was open! His name was Florentine Calegeri, and he was really good on stilts. The Golden Gate is not golden. Many visitors to San Francisco think it is going to be and are surprised. The Bridge got its name because it goes over the Golden Gate Strait. The strait was named by a person in the United States Army in 1846. Eleven men died building the Golden Gate Bridge. 96 men died building the Hoover Dam, which opened one year earlier, in 1936. So that is an interesting number. You would think a lot more people might die building such a big bridge. Ten of the men died in one single accident on the bridge when it was almost done.
