August 1936: The cables of the Golden Gate Bridge

The Golden Gate had been under construction since January 1933, and by the time a three-part feature appeared in The Engineer across July and August of 1936, the structure was nearing completion. Parts I and II had looked at the design, excavations and pier-building that the Golden Gate required, but the final installment focused on the cabling operation of the giant suspension bridge.

According to our predecessors, by the summer of ’36 the spinning of the main suspension cables was three-quarters done, and there was “ample warrant for the official assurance” that the bridge’s completion date of May 1937 would be met. With a total length from abutment to abutment of 8,981 feet (2,737 m), and a main span of 4,200 feet (1,280 m), the cabling of the bridge was an enormous undertaking.

“Each main suspension cable is made up of sixty-one strands, and contrary to previous practice, the strands differ in size, depending on their respective positions in the cable – the number of individual wires therefore in the several strands ranges from 256 to 472 wires, and each wire is 0.196in in diameter.”