On May 27, 1937, San Francisco’s Golden Gate Bridge opened, connecting bustling San Francisco to sleepy Marin County to the north. The Oakland-Bay Bridge had opened six months earlier — but the Golden Gate was an engineering triumph. It straddles the Golden Gate Strait, the passage from the Pacific Ocean into the San Francisco Bay, where rough currents prevail and winds can reach 70 mph.
The bridge’s opening day was strictly for pedestrians. The day was typical for May in San Francisco: foggy, windy and cold. That didn’t stop 200,000 people from crossing the bridge. Many walked. Others ran, tap-danced, roller-skated, unicycled or strode on stilts.
The night before the bridge opened, 16-year-old Edgar Stone and two high school friends finished watching a movie in a San Francisco theater. They decided to head to the bridge and be the first in line to cross.
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