Golden Gate Bridge Writing Prompt

This last week I visited the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco. I got to walk and drive across the entire thing. I even saw it lit up at night. It was incredible and amazing to see it during the day and night.

What some people don’t know is why it is called the Golden Gate Bridge. The Bridge is about 1.7 miles long and crosses the Golden Gate Strait from San Francisco to Lime Point. When boats or ferries cross under the bridge into California, they say they are going through the Golden Gate to the Golden State. In fact, that is why that name was chosen for the large piece of architecture.

Although the Golden Gate Bridge is now red, when it was first built it was a yellowish gold. Why would they paint red it if it was called the Golden Gate bridge? Because the engineers didn’t want their bridge to be exposed to corrosive and harmful elements, they chose to paint it. A man named Irving Morrow had noticed some of the steel beams had come primed in dark orange and suggested the idea to the head engineer. He suggested the fact that all other bridges at that time were either gray or black. To be different, he said, they should paint it bright red. It is because of him that the Golden Gate Bridge is painted in what is deemed ‘International Orange.’ In fact, they work on repainting it almost every day. When the painters get to the end of the bridge, it is just about time to start painting the other side again, so the bridge is constantly under maintenance.

An average of 100,000 cars cross the Golden Gate bridge per day, adding up to almost 40 million vehicles per year. Almost 10,000 pedestrians and 6,000 bicyclists cross the Golden Gate Bridge daily, adding up to more than 2,245,255,874 people since the bridge was opened in 1937.

Another interesting fact is that the cables suspending the bridge actually have 27,572 smaller wires inside of them. The engineers were forced to wrap the cables up and down the tall towers of the bridge and wrap those wires in an outer covering so they wouldn’t come undone. They had to do this one small wire at a time because the bigger ones were too heavy at the time. That means that the workers had to run back and forth on the bridge almost 27,572 times.

I like learning interesting things about the places I visit, from how the place was built, to who helped make it, and how long it took exactly to finish the project. It helps me visualize how much work the building or whatever it is was. It also helps me think about what the people’s lives must have been like creating a bridge considered to be impossible to build. What did they think about it? What did their friends think about it? How did they feel after completing the Golden Gate Bridge after so many years of hard work?

With these questions in mind, I’d like to extend to you a writing prompt. Write a journal entry from a person’s perspective, made up or not, about one of the coolest places you’ve been. Write about their lives while building or creating it. It doesn’t have to be long, even just a paragraph will work. If you don’t know what it would have been like, look it up, or make it up. Writing is supposed to be fun, not unbearable.

Share your thoughts here! Stay magical,