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Chrysopylae
San Francisco’s fabled strait was so named two years before gold was discovered in Northern California. How did it get the name “Golden Gate?”
---
TRANSCRIPT:
---
AM: Hello. I’m Anne Monk. SO: And I’m Sabrina Oliveros. AM: We’re park guides at San Francisco Maritime National Historical Park. SO: Since you hit the play button, you probably know that you’re about to listen to the first episode of our podcast series, Better Lives, Bitter Lies. AM: But, before the episode proper, we wanted to take a moment to talk about why we started this podcast. When shelter-in-place orders for the COVID-19 pandemic were issued in San Francisco, we didn’t know how long we would be working from home, or what “working from home” would look like for people whose jobs were regularly interacting with thousands of people each day. SO: We were in very fortunate positions. We did not have to worry immediately about shelter, food, or whether we would receive our next paycheck. AM: But we worried about how we could best use this time away from our physical park. What could we learn? How could we continue to serve our park and its mission? For us, it was to learn as much as we could and to share it however was feasible. SO: Our park’s mission is to, quote, “forge emotional and intellectual connections through preservation and interpretation of the resources and stories of America's maritime gateways, history, and culture, especially the development of the Pacific Coast.” AM: That’s quite the tall order. SO: Well, we have tall ships! AM: And they’re a great place to start learning! SO: Mhmm. AM: So much history is held within the walls of our ships. And let’s not forget about the waters they float in--the San Francisco Bay.
SO: True. There’s just so much to learn and studying history doesn’t happen in a vacuum. AM: True. SO: So when we started this project, our minds were understandably preoccupied with questions of contagious diseases. AM: And, naturally, one of the topics which caught our attention was the Bubonic Plague of 1900-1904, which reached San Francisco through ships coming from the Pacific. The plague also became racialized and politicized as a disease brought about by Chinese immigration. There was considerable room for maritime-related interpretation -- and for an exploration of how and why that plague has parallels with the COVID-19 pandemic today. SO: As Anne said, we felt we needed to learn as much on the subject and understand its nuances as much as we could. Research sent us farther down--as we're fond of saying on this podcast [AM laughs]--more and more rabbit holes. Then we discovered that understanding anything about the plague meant understanding layer upon layer of San Francisco's history. This dates all the way back before the Gold Rush, to the vision of the Golden Gate as a, quote-unquote, “gateway to trade with the Orient.” AM: We then realized that the plague, the Gold Rush -- and so many other things we'd discovered in between -- were also related to two maritime topics we had each independently been studying. One was sexual slavery in Chinatown and the Barbary Coast. The other was debt peonage among the so-called, quote-unquote “China Gang” on ships like the Star of Alaska, which is called in our park by its original name, Balclutha. The narrative and thematic focus of our podcast came to take shape significantly around the Chinese-American experience. SO: Yet, as we began working on all these topics, parsing their relationship with the present and forming the framework for this series, our attention--and, I think it’s safe to say, the country’s attention--was turned again. AM: With the wrongful deaths of George Floyd, Ahmaud Arbery, Breonna Taylor--among so many, many other Black lives lost this year and before-- the nation’s focus as well as our own shifted and we want to address the movement for justice and the protection and respect of Black lives. SO: So while we start this podcast with some focus on the Chinese-American experience, that won’t be the only one we’re sharing. After all, there is never a single story -- especially not when talking about history. AM: We hope that in continuing this work and thinking critically about the stories we tell and the stories which have always been told to us, we will spark curiosity, ignite discussion, and normalize questioning personal bias. We hope we will all reconsider how these biases frame not only the way we look at history, but also the history we choose to look at. SO: Or the history that we are told to look at. AM: Or the history we don’t realize we’re looking at. SO: I think we can hash that out as episodes go along. AM: I think you’re right. SO: But, for our listeners out there...if you’re still with us [AM chuckles] -- you’ll now hear the first episode in our series, Better Lives, Bitter Lies. This was originally recorded in April 2020 and it takes the first steps into questioning the narratives we know. AM: We hope you enjoy it!
[music cue]
AM: Hi, Sabrina! SO: Hi, Anne! What have we got going on today? AM: Well, I thought we could talk about the most common question we get as park guides at San Francisco Maritime National Historical Park. SO: Do you mean besides “Where’s the bathroom?” AM: [laughs] For the purposes of this podcast, yes… SO: Well, since Hyde Street Pier is located on the edge of the San Francisco Bay, it has to be about the bridge. AM: Which bridge? SO: That’s a good point! You can see both the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge and the Golden Gate Bridge from our park when the weather’s good…. But very few visitors ask me first about the Bay Bridge. They want to know about the beautiful, bright orange gateway to the west-- the Golden Gate. AM: Given how foggy San Francisco can get, I usually get questions about when and if the fog will lift and if we can normally see the bridge. SO: Reality check -- not always! AM: But I love when people ask why it’s called the Golden Gate Bridge. SO: You do? AM: I do! Because I got it wrong the first time! I thought it had to do with the color of the bridge or the way it’s illuminated at sunset. SO: I thought that, too! But that’s not the case, right? AM: Nope! Though the color of the bridge--Golden Gate Bridge International Orange--is now so famous that it has its own color coordinates. The Golden Gate Bridge is actually named for the strait that it crosses--the Golden Gate! SO: Are you ready to have your mind blown even more? AM: Always.
[audio pause/music cue]
SO: So we have the Golden Gate Strait, right, and then the Bridge. I’m sure we’ve both heard of the Golden State Warriors. What else comes into your mind when you think of gold and San Francisco? AM: The Gold Rush! Is that how the strait got its name? [Mmmm.] Because it was the gate ships sailed through for people to reach the gold fields? SO: That’s certainly one way of seeing it. Or how people also got to see it. But believe it or not, no. The explorer John C. Fremont named the strait in 1846. That’s two years before gold was famously discovered in Northern California. AM: John C. Fremont...The “Pathfinder”? [Mhm] Besides being an educator, presidential candidate, one-time military governor of California, he was the United States explorer who led surveying expeditions to the west coast between 1838 and 1854, right? [Mhm] I’ve heard that his expeditions are responsible for the majority of the early federal mapping of the territory between the Mississippi River Valley and the Pacific Ocean. And his published reports certainly seemed to capture imaginations back east. SO: Yes! And speaking of east -- Fremont had an idea of something even farther “West” than Oregon or California. Considering their natural resources, considering their geography, Fremont saw the West Coast’s potential for trading with China and East India -- in other words, Asia, or what’s been traditionally viewed in Europe and America as “the East.” That brings us back to the naming of the strait.
[music cue]
SO: Fremont specifically said it’s “a golden gate to trade with the Orient.” But he didn’t just name it in plain English. AM: Of course not. SO: Nope. He used the Greek term “Chrysopylae”, which means just that: golden gate. He based it on the name of another famous harbor: the Chrysoceras in ancient Byzantium. Otherwise known as the Golden Horn of the Bosphorus strait in modern-day Istanbul. AM: Wow! SO: Yeah! And I’m going to go on and on here, because I find this whole concept of “Chrysos” and gold and their mythical connotations fascinating. And it seemed to be on Fremont’s mind too. Later, he supported the idea of a Pacific railroad connecting the east and west coasts. This was related to a vision of building up the U.S. as an economic power. Goods from Asia didn’t need to go through Europe to get to America. America would be at the center between Asia and Europe instead. [AM: Huh!] Here’s what he said to the newspaper National Intelligencer in 1854. With a railroad, to quote “the golden vein which runs through the history of the world, will follow the iron track to San Francisco, and the Asiatic trade will finally fall into its last and permanent road, when the ancient and the modern Chryse throw open their gates to the thoroughfare of the world.”
[audio pause/music cue]
AM: You’ve had too much time to read during shelter-in-place, haven’t you? SO: Well. Haven’t you? AM: Touché. I’ve tried to keep to historical texts, but the same event and person can be portrayed in so many different ways. It becomes so hard to tell what actually happened and what makes a tidy narrative. In fact, I’m guilty of sculpting a tidy narrative within this conversation. I talked about John C. Fremont’s heralded roles and the popularity he gained from his expeditions, but what about his infamy? SO: Hm Fremont supported the Bear Flag Republic, he was appointed military governor of California by Stockton and refused to give up the post when General Stephen Kearny arrived in California with orders from Washington to establish a government. Fremont was eventually arrested, sent to Washington, D.C., and between 1847 and 1848 was court-martialed for, quote, “mutiny, disobedience, and conduct prejudicial to military discipline”. SO: I don’t think that was a path he ever thought he would find himself on! AM: I certainly hope not! Of course, that isn’t the end of his story. President Polk set aside his penalty for court-martial and Fremont returned to California in time to profit from the Gold Rush. In 1850, he would go on to become one of the first two U.S. senators of California [Huh!]; lead an expedition into Utah Territory between 1853 and 1854, and even be nominated for the presidency in 1856! SO: And to bring his story back closer to home, in the 1860s, John and his wife, Jessie Benton Fremont, actually LIVED above the Golden Gate strait. [Wow!] In fact, they lived just above where our park is now, on the land by Muni Pier known then as Black Point. Jessie wrote with great fondness of this residence, saying that she loved it so much she “had joy even in the tolling of the fogbell”. AM: Which, if the fog was anything like it is today, must have been heard at any time of day or night! How long did the Fremonts live on their farm in Black Point? SO: Um, they got the property in about 1860, but by the end of 1863, the military took over Black Point to build more fortifications for the Civil War. This paved the way for Black Point becoming part of what is now Upper Fort Mason. AM: Black Point Cove, of course, would become known as Aquatic Park Cove in the 1930s, when the park was built around it. SO: My favorite topic! But, as much as I would love to say that Aquatic Park was the defining construction project of that decade, I can’t. [AM: Hm!] So many of San Francisco’s iconic structures were built then. Coit Tower. The Bay Bridge. And we come right back to the most iconic of all.
[audio pause/music cue]
AM: Construction for the Golden Gate Bridge began in 1933, but the idea was conceived as early as 1916. The City formally launched a feasibility study in 1919, and the 1920s then saw a lot of consulting, reviewing proposals, securing funds, getting permissions -- as well as earning support. Today, it’s easy to think that the Golden Gate Bridge was always just so popular and beloved, but there was quite the opposition. SO: Yeah! People were concerned it was too expensive, too risky, too undoable. AM: And people worried about what it might do. For example, we’ve mentioned the military presence along the coast. The Navy feared ships would crash into the bridge and block the bay’s entrance, or maybe enemies would sabotage the bridge. Ferry companies worried the bridge would harm their business -- and they were right. As we know from the history of Eureka in our park, [Mhm] both the Golden Gate and Bay bridges signaled the beginning of the end of ferries filling the bay. And there were groups that opposed the bridge, worried about environmental damage, or that the bridge would ruin the strait’s natural beauty. SO: Wait, wait. Speaking of natural beauty, earlier you mentioned that the bridge’s color, International Orange, has its own color coordinates. Can you go further into that color choice? AM: Absolutely! Color choice was definitely a big part of the planning process. See, up to that point, bridges tended to be black, gray, or silver. That would have been the conventional choice… and would have made the bridge disappear in the fog. The Navy wanted the bridge to be yellow and black [SO laughs] so it would be easier to see by passing ships. The Army Air Corps wanted it red and white to be noticeable from the air. SO: So, you’re saying we could have had the Candy Cane Bridge?! [AM laughs] Is that better than the Bumblebee Bridge? You know, the Silver Strait Bridge has a ring to it... AM: But the people, the locals, were having none of that grayscale business for this bridge. They wanted aesthetics to match the sea, the hills, the light. The towers had been built first; the primer painted on the steel was red; and they loved how the red looked. So they wrote as much to the consulting architect, Irving Morrow, who had noticed the red primer, and understood everyone’s concern. Morrow completely believed the bridge was going to be, quote, “one of the greatest monuments of all time.” He didn’t want the wrong color to undermine its form, size, or scale. Ultimately, Morrow chose what he then called orange vermillion, or red lead. As we can now see -- no matter if it’s a clear or foggy day -- this shade looks beautiful with the blue, green, and gray all around it. SO: So the name Golden Gate didn’t really figure in the color choice. Not that a literal golden bridge would have looked good. AM: No. But in the right light, like the strait itself, the bridge looks golden, anyway. SO: Literally and figuratively. Can I read from an old newspaper again? AM: Please do! SO: This is from the San Francisco Chronicle the day before the bridge opened in 1937. There were city-wide celebrations, and the writer describes all that excitement: bands, parades, dancing, singing, souvenir hawking, fiesta and fireworks way into the evening. Then he closes with these lines:
“And out at the Golden Gate, that huge and beautiful thing stood alone and dreamed. Dreamed and hummed strange melodies to herself, sang strange songs to the darkening waters of the Golden Gate, to the green-clad hills of old Marin. Held mystic conversation with the gulls about her head, those gulls that were there when Vizcaino came, when Drake sailed past, when De Ayala danced through the Gate in the tiny San Carlos. Alone, and for the last time, she dreamed, that glowing, vibrant thing of beauty and strength. Like a bride she was on her marriage eve. Today the Golden Gate Bridge will begin to live.” (SF Chronicle, May 27, 1937) AM: I don’t know what else John Fremont was thinking when he named the strait, but if you ask me, all that romanticism fits right in with a name like “Chrysopylae.” SO: It certainly paints a pretty picture. I don’t know though if personifying the Golden Gate as a bride who will only begin to live once married would fly today… AM: That’s true! So much of our job is turning today’s lens on the history we can see in the objects, places, and people that make up our park. I don’t know about you, but this conversation has brought so many more questions to my mind. SO: Like, how many people took advantage of Fremont’s golden vein? AM: And did the Golden Gate really hold the key to better lives? SO: Who really made money in the Gold Rush? AM: How did San Francisco care for all of these hopefuls? SO: How did it fail? AM: All these questions spring from the idea of a golden land, of greater opportunity on the other side of a journey, and there are so many topics in the history of San Francisco and its waterfront that we can look at through this lens. SO: Absolutely! But I hope, looking through today’s lens, we’re not just going to discover that when people look at the golden gate, they see their dream of a better life reflected back as a bitter lie. AM: I think it’s safe to say that nothing is black and white. That’s why we should keep revisiting the myths! SO: Nothing is black and white...just shades of international orange. AM: [Laughs] aaaaand we’ve found our way back to the Golden Gate. SO: Well. People. Always. Do. For my final newspaper excerpt for today -- AM: Promise? SO: I promise. 26.2 million people visited San Francisco in 2019. Even if only a quarter of them were international tourists -- I can’t even begin to imagine how many of them came here just to see the bridge. AM: And Alcatraz! Imagine if we started talking about visitors asking “How do we get to Alcatraz?” SO: [Laughs} Do they really want to know? AM: Come to think of it, we could probably have a whole historical analysis related to “Where’s the bathroom?” SO: Oh no. AM: Oh yes. SO: Well, you can save that for another episode. AM: You got it!
**audio break**
AM: You’ve just gotten a glimpse into a new project we’re excited to bring to your virtual park. “Better Lives, Bitter Lies” is a podcast series focusing on the role of propaganda, trickery, and misinformation in bringing people to the San Francisco Bay in search of better lives since 1849. These discussions are not meant to be comprehensive pictures of historical events, but rather to spark curiosity, discussion, and further exploration. Keep an eye out for our next episode!
**outro music**
Episode music: “Turning to You” and “When We Set Out” by Blue Dot Sessions. Licensed under Creative Commons BY-NC.
View all episodes
By National Park Service
5
1212 ratings
San Francisco’s fabled strait was so named two years before gold was discovered in Northern California. How did it get the name “Golden Gate?”
---
TRANSCRIPT:
---
AM: Hello. I’m Anne Monk. SO: And I’m Sabrina Oliveros. AM: We’re park guides at San Francisco Maritime National Historical Park. SO: Since you hit the play button, you probably know that you’re about to listen to the first episode of our podcast series, Better Lives, Bitter Lies. AM: But, before the episode proper, we wanted to take a moment to talk about why we started this podcast. When shelter-in-place orders for the COVID-19 pandemic were issued in San Francisco, we didn’t know how long we would be working from home, or what “working from home” would look like for people whose jobs were regularly interacting with thousands of people each day. SO: We were in very fortunate positions. We did not have to worry immediately about shelter, food, or whether we would receive our next paycheck. AM: But we worried about how we could best use this time away from our physical park. What could we learn? How could we continue to serve our park and its mission? For us, it was to learn as much as we could and to share it however was feasible. SO: Our park’s mission is to, quote, “forge emotional and intellectual connections through preservation and interpretation of the resources and stories of America's maritime gateways, history, and culture, especially the development of the Pacific Coast.” AM: That’s quite the tall order. SO: Well, we have tall ships! AM: And they’re a great place to start learning! SO: Mhmm. AM: So much history is held within the walls of our ships. And let’s not forget about the waters they float in--the San Francisco Bay.
SO: True. There’s just so much to learn and studying history doesn’t happen in a vacuum. AM: True. SO: So when we started this project, our minds were understandably preoccupied with questions of contagious diseases. AM: And, naturally, one of the topics which caught our attention was the Bubonic Plague of 1900-1904, which reached San Francisco through ships coming from the Pacific. The plague also became racialized and politicized as a disease brought about by Chinese immigration. There was considerable room for maritime-related interpretation -- and for an exploration of how and why that plague has parallels with the COVID-19 pandemic today. SO: As Anne said, we felt we needed to learn as much on the subject and understand its nuances as much as we could. Research sent us farther down--as we're fond of saying on this podcast [AM laughs]--more and more rabbit holes. Then we discovered that understanding anything about the plague meant understanding layer upon layer of San Francisco's history. This dates all the way back before the Gold Rush, to the vision of the Golden Gate as a, quote-unquote, “gateway to trade with the Orient.” AM: We then realized that the plague, the Gold Rush -- and so many other things we'd discovered in between -- were also related to two maritime topics we had each independently been studying. One was sexual slavery in Chinatown and the Barbary Coast. The other was debt peonage among the so-called, quote-unquote “China Gang” on ships like the Star of Alaska, which is called in our park by its original name, Balclutha. The narrative and thematic focus of our podcast came to take shape significantly around the Chinese-American experience. SO: Yet, as we began working on all these topics, parsing their relationship with the present and forming the framework for this series, our attention--and, I think it’s safe to say, the country’s attention--was turned again. AM: With the wrongful deaths of George Floyd, Ahmaud Arbery, Breonna Taylor--among so many, many other Black lives lost this year and before-- the nation’s focus as well as our own shifted and we want to address the movement for justice and the protection and respect of Black lives. SO: So while we start this podcast with some focus on the Chinese-American experience, that won’t be the only one we’re sharing. After all, there is never a single story -- especially not when talking about history. AM: We hope that in continuing this work and thinking critically about the stories we tell and the stories which have always been told to us, we will spark curiosity, ignite discussion, and normalize questioning personal bias. We hope we will all reconsider how these biases frame not only the way we look at history, but also the history we choose to look at. SO: Or the history that we are told to look at. AM: Or the history we don’t realize we’re looking at. SO: I think we can hash that out as episodes go along. AM: I think you’re right. SO: But, for our listeners out there...if you’re still with us [AM chuckles] -- you’ll now hear the first episode in our series, Better Lives, Bitter Lies. This was originally recorded in April 2020 and it takes the first steps into questioning the narratives we know. AM: We hope you enjoy it!
[music cue]
AM: Hi, Sabrina! SO: Hi, Anne! What have we got going on today? AM: Well, I thought we could talk about the most common question we get as park guides at San Francisco Maritime National Historical Park. SO: Do you mean besides “Where’s the bathroom?” AM: [laughs] For the purposes of this podcast, yes… SO: Well, since Hyde Street Pier is located on the edge of the San Francisco Bay, it has to be about the bridge. AM: Which bridge? SO: That’s a good point! You can see both the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge and the Golden Gate Bridge from our park when the weather’s good…. But very few visitors ask me first about the Bay Bridge. They want to know about the beautiful, bright orange gateway to the west-- the Golden Gate. AM: Given how foggy San Francisco can get, I usually get questions about when and if the fog will lift and if we can normally see the bridge. SO: Reality check -- not always! AM: But I love when people ask why it’s called the Golden Gate Bridge. SO: You do? AM: I do! Because I got it wrong the first time! I thought it had to do with the color of the bridge or the way it’s illuminated at sunset. SO: I thought that, too! But that’s not the case, right? AM: Nope! Though the color of the bridge--Golden Gate Bridge International Orange--is now so famous that it has its own color coordinates. The Golden Gate Bridge is actually named for the strait that it crosses--the Golden Gate! SO: Are you ready to have your mind blown even more? AM: Always.
[audio pause/music cue]
SO: So we have the Golden Gate Strait, right, and then the Bridge. I’m sure we’ve both heard of the Golden State Warriors. What else comes into your mind when you think of gold and San Francisco? AM: The Gold Rush! Is that how the strait got its name? [Mmmm.] Because it was the gate ships sailed through for people to reach the gold fields? SO: That’s certainly one way of seeing it. Or how people also got to see it. But believe it or not, no. The explorer John C. Fremont named the strait in 1846. That’s two years before gold was famously discovered in Northern California. AM: John C. Fremont...The “Pathfinder”? [Mhm] Besides being an educator, presidential candidate, one-time military governor of California, he was the United States explorer who led surveying expeditions to the west coast between 1838 and 1854, right? [Mhm] I’ve heard that his expeditions are responsible for the majority of the early federal mapping of the territory between the Mississippi River Valley and the Pacific Ocean. And his published reports certainly seemed to capture imaginations back east. SO: Yes! And speaking of east -- Fremont had an idea of something even farther “West” than Oregon or California. Considering their natural resources, considering their geography, Fremont saw the West Coast’s potential for trading with China and East India -- in other words, Asia, or what’s been traditionally viewed in Europe and America as “the East.” That brings us back to the naming of the strait.
[music cue]
SO: Fremont specifically said it’s “a golden gate to trade with the Orient.” But he didn’t just name it in plain English. AM: Of course not. SO: Nope. He used the Greek term “Chrysopylae”, which means just that: golden gate. He based it on the name of another famous harbor: the Chrysoceras in ancient Byzantium. Otherwise known as the Golden Horn of the Bosphorus strait in modern-day Istanbul. AM: Wow! SO: Yeah! And I’m going to go on and on here, because I find this whole concept of “Chrysos” and gold and their mythical connotations fascinating. And it seemed to be on Fremont’s mind too. Later, he supported the idea of a Pacific railroad connecting the east and west coasts. This was related to a vision of building up the U.S. as an economic power. Goods from Asia didn’t need to go through Europe to get to America. America would be at the center between Asia and Europe instead. [AM: Huh!] Here’s what he said to the newspaper National Intelligencer in 1854. With a railroad, to quote “the golden vein which runs through the history of the world, will follow the iron track to San Francisco, and the Asiatic trade will finally fall into its last and permanent road, when the ancient and the modern Chryse throw open their gates to the thoroughfare of the world.”
[audio pause/music cue]
AM: You’ve had too much time to read during shelter-in-place, haven’t you? SO: Well. Haven’t you? AM: Touché. I’ve tried to keep to historical texts, but the same event and person can be portrayed in so many different ways. It becomes so hard to tell what actually happened and what makes a tidy narrative. In fact, I’m guilty of sculpting a tidy narrative within this conversation. I talked about John C. Fremont’s heralded roles and the popularity he gained from his expeditions, but what about his infamy? SO: Hm Fremont supported the Bear Flag Republic, he was appointed military governor of California by Stockton and refused to give up the post when General Stephen Kearny arrived in California with orders from Washington to establish a government. Fremont was eventually arrested, sent to Washington, D.C., and between 1847 and 1848 was court-martialed for, quote, “mutiny, disobedience, and conduct prejudicial to military discipline”. SO: I don’t think that was a path he ever thought he would find himself on! AM: I certainly hope not! Of course, that isn’t the end of his story. President Polk set aside his penalty for court-martial and Fremont returned to California in time to profit from the Gold Rush. In 1850, he would go on to become one of the first two U.S. senators of California [Huh!]; lead an expedition into Utah Territory between 1853 and 1854, and even be nominated for the presidency in 1856! SO: And to bring his story back closer to home, in the 1860s, John and his wife, Jessie Benton Fremont, actually LIVED above the Golden Gate strait. [Wow!] In fact, they lived just above where our park is now, on the land by Muni Pier known then as Black Point. Jessie wrote with great fondness of this residence, saying that she loved it so much she “had joy even in the tolling of the fogbell”. AM: Which, if the fog was anything like it is today, must have been heard at any time of day or night! How long did the Fremonts live on their farm in Black Point? SO: Um, they got the property in about 1860, but by the end of 1863, the military took over Black Point to build more fortifications for the Civil War. This paved the way for Black Point becoming part of what is now Upper Fort Mason. AM: Black Point Cove, of course, would become known as Aquatic Park Cove in the 1930s, when the park was built around it. SO: My favorite topic! But, as much as I would love to say that Aquatic Park was the defining construction project of that decade, I can’t. [AM: Hm!] So many of San Francisco’s iconic structures were built then. Coit Tower. The Bay Bridge. And we come right back to the most iconic of all.
[audio pause/music cue]
AM: Construction for the Golden Gate Bridge began in 1933, but the idea was conceived as early as 1916. The City formally launched a feasibility study in 1919, and the 1920s then saw a lot of consulting, reviewing proposals, securing funds, getting permissions -- as well as earning support. Today, it’s easy to think that the Golden Gate Bridge was always just so popular and beloved, but there was quite the opposition. SO: Yeah! People were concerned it was too expensive, too risky, too undoable. AM: And people worried about what it might do. For example, we’ve mentioned the military presence along the coast. The Navy feared ships would crash into the bridge and block the bay’s entrance, or maybe enemies would sabotage the bridge. Ferry companies worried the bridge would harm their business -- and they were right. As we know from the history of Eureka in our park, [Mhm] both the Golden Gate and Bay bridges signaled the beginning of the end of ferries filling the bay. And there were groups that opposed the bridge, worried about environmental damage, or that the bridge would ruin the strait’s natural beauty. SO: Wait, wait. Speaking of natural beauty, earlier you mentioned that the bridge’s color, International Orange, has its own color coordinates. Can you go further into that color choice? AM: Absolutely! Color choice was definitely a big part of the planning process. See, up to that point, bridges tended to be black, gray, or silver. That would have been the conventional choice… and would have made the bridge disappear in the fog. The Navy wanted the bridge to be yellow and black [SO laughs] so it would be easier to see by passing ships. The Army Air Corps wanted it red and white to be noticeable from the air. SO: So, you’re saying we could have had the Candy Cane Bridge?! [AM laughs] Is that better than the Bumblebee Bridge? You know, the Silver Strait Bridge has a ring to it... AM: But the people, the locals, were having none of that grayscale business for this bridge. They wanted aesthetics to match the sea, the hills, the light. The towers had been built first; the primer painted on the steel was red; and they loved how the red looked. So they wrote as much to the consulting architect, Irving Morrow, who had noticed the red primer, and understood everyone’s concern. Morrow completely believed the bridge was going to be, quote, “one of the greatest monuments of all time.” He didn’t want the wrong color to undermine its form, size, or scale. Ultimately, Morrow chose what he then called orange vermillion, or red lead. As we can now see -- no matter if it’s a clear or foggy day -- this shade looks beautiful with the blue, green, and gray all around it. SO: So the name Golden Gate didn’t really figure in the color choice. Not that a literal golden bridge would have looked good. AM: No. But in the right light, like the strait itself, the bridge looks golden, anyway. SO: Literally and figuratively. Can I read from an old newspaper again? AM: Please do! SO: This is from the San Francisco Chronicle the day before the bridge opened in 1937. There were city-wide celebrations, and the writer describes all that excitement: bands, parades, dancing, singing, souvenir hawking, fiesta and fireworks way into the evening. Then he closes with these lines:
“And out at the Golden Gate, that huge and beautiful thing stood alone and dreamed. Dreamed and hummed strange melodies to herself, sang strange songs to the darkening waters of the Golden Gate, to the green-clad hills of old Marin. Held mystic conversation with the gulls about her head, those gulls that were there when Vizcaino came, when Drake sailed past, when De Ayala danced through the Gate in the tiny San Carlos. Alone, and for the last time, she dreamed, that glowing, vibrant thing of beauty and strength. Like a bride she was on her marriage eve. Today the Golden Gate Bridge will begin to live.” (SF Chronicle, May 27, 1937) AM: I don’t know what else John Fremont was thinking when he named the strait, but if you ask me, all that romanticism fits right in with a name like “Chrysopylae.” SO: It certainly paints a pretty picture. I don’t know though if personifying the Golden Gate as a bride who will only begin to live once married would fly today… AM: That’s true! So much of our job is turning today’s lens on the history we can see in the objects, places, and people that make up our park. I don’t know about you, but this conversation has brought so many more questions to my mind. SO: Like, how many people took advantage of Fremont’s golden vein? AM: And did the Golden Gate really hold the key to better lives? SO: Who really made money in the Gold Rush? AM: How did San Francisco care for all of these hopefuls? SO: How did it fail? AM: All these questions spring from the idea of a golden land, of greater opportunity on the other side of a journey, and there are so many topics in the history of San Francisco and its waterfront that we can look at through this lens. SO: Absolutely! But I hope, looking through today’s lens, we’re not just going to discover that when people look at the golden gate, they see their dream of a better life reflected back as a bitter lie. AM: I think it’s safe to say that nothing is black and white. That’s why we should keep revisiting the myths! SO: Nothing is black and white...just shades of international orange. AM: [Laughs] aaaaand we’ve found our way back to the Golden Gate. SO: Well. People. Always. Do. For my final newspaper excerpt for today -- AM: Promise? SO: I promise. 26.2 million people visited San Francisco in 2019. Even if only a quarter of them were international tourists -- I can’t even begin to imagine how many of them came here just to see the bridge. AM: And Alcatraz! Imagine if we started talking about visitors asking “How do we get to Alcatraz?” SO: [Laughs} Do they really want to know? AM: Come to think of it, we could probably have a whole historical analysis related to “Where’s the bathroom?” SO: Oh no. AM: Oh yes. SO: Well, you can save that for another episode. AM: You got it!
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AM: You’ve just gotten a glimpse into a new project we’re excited to bring to your virtual park. “Better Lives, Bitter Lies” is a podcast series focusing on the role of propaganda, trickery, and misinformation in bringing people to the San Francisco Bay in search of better lives since 1849. These discussions are not meant to be comprehensive pictures of historical events, but rather to spark curiosity, discussion, and further exploration. Keep an eye out for our next episode!
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Episode music: “Turning to You” and “When We Set Out” by Blue Dot Sessions. Licensed under Creative Commons BY-NC.