This May marks 80 years since the Golden Gate Bridge. But Eighty years ago this week, 10 laborers fell from the bridge to their deaths, breaking what Life magazine called a “historic record” of safety at a construction site.
Up until that day, just one worker had died — remarkable for a time when the rule of thumb in construction was to assume one death for every $1 million spent. The bridge cost $35 million, or about $590 million in today’s dollars.
The bridge’s nearly perfect record was due to the obsession with safety protocols from its chief engineer, Joseph Strauss, along with an innovation he brought that was unheard-of in 1930s construction: a safety net to catch falling workers.
Nineteen workers fell to the net while the bridge was being built, forming what they called the “Half Way to Hell Club.” But on Feb. 17, 1937 scaffolding on the side of the bridge fell and ripped through the net, taking the 10 laborers with it.
