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The story of the creation of the Golden Gate Bridge.
Streetwise - Birth of a Bridge
by Frank Dunnigan
Frank Dunnigan, WNP member and columnist. -
From the mid-1840s, when Captain John Fremont declared California’s independence from Mexico, local land speculators were eyeing the hills of today's Marin County, and wondering just how the area could be linked to the community of Yerba Buena, as San Francisco was then known—for both public and personal benefit. A bridge was the ideal solution, but the swift currents and the depth of the waters at the entrance to San Francisco Bay, along with other factors, presented insurmountable challenges for decades.