The bridge opened to people on foot on 27 May 1937, when around two hundred thousand of them walked and roller-skated across it. Cars followed the next day, when President Roosevelt opened it remotely from Washington at noon.
Almost everything written about it since gives the credit for the design to the wrong man — and the bridge has changed in one visible respect since any older photograph of it was taken.
Joseph Strauss was chief engineer and the project's tireless promoter, and he spent a decade forcing the thing into existence against determined opposition. He also took most of the credit, and three other men deserve more of it than they have ever had.
Strauss's own proposal of 1921 was a hybrid of two stubby cantilever trusses with a short suspension span slung between them. It was not beautiful and it was not what got built. Leon Moisseiff, a consulting engineer, conceived the all-suspension design that replaced it. Charles Alton Ellis, an engineering professor from the University of Illinois, was the principal engineer: he did the structural mathematics, including the wind and deflection analysis on which the whole thing depends. Strauss dismissed him in November 1931 and he received almost no credit while he lived. In May 2007 the bridge district formally resolved to give Ellis major credit for the design, seventy-six years after he was sacked.
Irving Morrow, a residential architect with no bridge experience, gave it everything that makes it look the way it does: the tapering towers with their vertical fluting, the railings, the street lamps, the Art Deco detail, and the colour. The Navy wanted it painted in black and yellow stripes for visibility. Morrow argued for international orange on the grounds that it suited the headlands and the water and would show up in fog. He was right, and it has never been painted anything else.
One small correction while on the subject: Strauss died in 1938, a year after the bridge opened. Accounts stating that he outlived the bridge have it backwards.
Strauss insisted on a movable safety net strung beneath the deck, which had not been done on a project of this scale before. It worked: nineteen men fell into it and lived, and they formed a club they called the Half Way to Hell Club.
Eleven died, and ten of them died on one day. On 17 February 1937 a scaffold carrying twelve men was held by bolts that were too small for the load. It tore loose and went through the net. Two of the twelve survived a fall of around two hundred feet into the water.
For a structure of this size in the 1930s, eleven deaths was a remarkably low figure, and it was low because of the net — which makes the one day the net failed the more bitter.
A steel deterrent net was installed along both sides between April 2017 and January 2024, extending twenty feet out from the walkway and hanging twenty feet below it. It is the first visible change to the bridge's silhouette in its history, and no photograph taken before about 2020 shows it.
It has done what it was built to do. Deaths at the bridge in 2024 numbered eight, against a long-run average of around thirty-three a year. The engineering argument took decades to win and the structure is now cited internationally as evidence that barriers work.
This catches out visitors in hire cars, so it is worth stating plainly. The toll is charged southbound only, on the way into San Francisco — driving north to Marin is free. The bridge has been cashless for years: there is no booth and no way to hand over money. Charges are collected by transponder or read from the number plate.
A driver in a rental car who crosses without an account will have the toll billed to the plate, which means to the hire company, which generally adds an administration fee of its own. The arrangement is worth settling with the rental desk before setting off rather than discovering it on a statement weeks later.
Well worth doing, and the eastern walkway is the one with the view back to the city. Access is divided between walkers and cyclists and the division changes through the day — broadly, pedestrians and cyclists share the eastern side early on weekdays, pedestrians have it to themselves later and at weekends, and cyclists are moved to the western walkway. The arrangements are adjusted from time to time, so the current position is worth checking before setting out.
It is about 1.7 miles, or 2.7 kilometres, each way. It is completely exposed, it is reliably colder and windier than either shore, and the traffic is loud. The fog frequently sits on the bridge while the city behind it is in sunshine, which is worth knowing before committing an afternoon to a photograph.
The vista point at the southern end is the obvious stop and the busiest. Better: Fort Point, the brick fortification directly beneath the southern approach, which gives the bridge enormous scale; Baker Beach, for the view along the span from the west; and Battery Spencer on the Marin side, high above the northern tower, which is the classic photograph. Crissy Field and the Lands End trail both work on a clear day.
One naming confusion, since the question comes up constantly: Golden Gate Park is nowhere near the Golden Gate Bridge. Both are named after the strait, and they sit at opposite ends of the city.
General practicalities, including the weather that determines whether any of this is visible, are on the San Francisco page.