Carquinez Bridge, 1927-2007

On May 21, 1927 the Carquinez Bridge opened to traffic between Crockett and Vallejo, California. Just a few miles north of San Francisco, the Carquinez Bridge was the longest highway bridge in the world when it opened. It was also the first bridge across any part of the San Francisco Bay. The reason you have never heard of this magnificent bridge is because its opening was upstaged by Charles Lindbergh’s landing in Paris!

For most of its working life the Carquinez Bridge lived in the shadow of its more famous siblings: the Oakland Bay Bridge and the mighty Golden Gate Bridge. Still, the Carquinez Bridge was an engineering triumph. Designed by the great engineer David Steinman, the mighty Carquinez was built using new construction techniques and was the first bridge to use earthquake buffers in the design. A second twin Bridge was opened in 1958 and third replacement bridge was opened in 2003. From 2005 through 2007 the old bridge was deconstructed in reverse order of its construction.

In this book John V. Robinson takes readers on a photographic journey through time as he documents the birth, life, and death of one of America’s great bridges.