Bridge coaster idea briefly thrilled city
There were warning signs that Joseph Bazzeghin’s 1938 plan to run roller coasters on San Francisco’s two largest bridges might be a scam.
He promised that the Golden Gate Bridge Bolt roller coaster would travel up and down the suspension cables, reaching speeds of 220 miles per hour. (In 2016, there isn’t a roller coaster in Northern California that can break 65 mph.) Even as he made his Golden Gate International Exposition proposal in person to city leaders and the media, Bazzeghin asked newspapers not to print his name.
But despite a strong Profes-
sor Harold Hill (“The Music Man”) con man/grifter vibe, the lure of brightly colored cars filled with passengers zipping up and down the bridge spans was too enticing to dismiss. Bazzeghin’s scheme was taken seriously by exposition leaders, and landed on the front page of The Chronicle.
“The ingenious scheme of a Hamden, Conn. man to thrill Exposition visitors with a roller coaster ride over the towers of the two bay bridges descended yesterday on newspaper offices, the Toll Bridge Authority and the Exposition,” The Chronicle gushed.
Roller coasters were a growing craze throughout the nation. San Francisco had a coaster at Eighth and Mission streets as early as 1884, and the wooden Big Dipper coaster in 1922 became the centerpiece ride at San Francisco’s Playland-at-the-Beach.
But Bazzeghin had much bigger plans, detailed on blueprints featuring roller coasters on both then-new bridges.
On the Bay Bridge coaster, passengers would be lifted by elevator to the top of the third tower and ride and drop several times, including one plunge of several hundred feet below the bridge to the water’s edge. (The blueprints appear to show the car going under water.)
The promises for the Golden Gate Bridge coaster were even more ambitious, with a drop of 750 feet — the newish and imposing Gold Striker roller coaster at California’s Great America has a 103-foot drop — and a track that rocketed at 220 mph through a viaduct into Marin County.
“This project is actually larger than the rest of the Exposition put together,” Bazzeghin boasted to The Chronicle. “A suspension bridge is naturally made for this type of ride, the two going together as naturally as man and wife, ham and eggs, etc.”
Missing from Bazzeghin’s pitch: construction costs, insurance premium estimates, parking details, an engineer to confirm the plan was possible and a timetable. Representatives of the state Toll Bridge Authority seemed frustrated by the mere suggestion of the plan.
“We don’t even let people walk on the Bay Bridge,” said attorney F.M. McAuliffe.
The exposition organizers, however, initially called the idea “terrific.” Bazzeghin knew which buttons to push — convincing expo officials that they needed to top the Sky Ride, a gondola-like shuttle that was the showpiece of the 1933 Chicago World’s Fair.
When Bazzeghin arrived in town Aug. 1, 1938, the exposition was six months away from opening. Discussions continued until Sept. 27, 1938, when The Chronicle reported that the Bridge Toll Authority vetoed the plan.
The 1939-40 exposition was a success anyway. And even after the Big Dipper closed in the 1950s, roller coasters would remain popular in the Bay Area. There are more than a dozen total at Great America in Santa Clara, Six Flags Discovery Kingdom in Vallejo and the Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk.
But none has been able to top the Golden Gate Bridge Bolt, at least not in our dreams. It stands nearly 80 years later as the least practical, but most thrilling, idea for a ride in San Francisco history.