Golden Gate Bridge

Illustration of Golden Gate Bridge with an unrolling red carpet.

This spectacular bridge was the vision of two men, Joseph B. Strauss and Leon S. Moisseiff, who designed it using an Art Deco theme. Its name hails from explorer John C. Frémont who dubbed the entrance to the San Francisco Bay in 1846; the strait of the Golden Gate, which connects the Bay to the Pacific Ocean. It spans 1.7 miles and took four years to build. Once completed it was opened to the public in 1937; considered the longest suspension bridge ever built in the U.S. That is until 1964 when New York’s Verrazano-Narrows Bridge was built. So, number two in the U.S. and number nine in the world, that’s not bad for “the bridge that couldn't be built.” Today, the Golden Gate Bridge is one of the most popular tourist spots of the west coast.