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Tacoma Narrows Bridge Brochure

1950 · Tacoma, WA

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Pages (2)

Cover
Cover
Inside spread
Inside spread

Background

**Theodore Von Kármán** — the Hungarian-American physicist who co-founded modern jet aerodynamics — appears here as Consulting Aerodynamicist for a suspension bridge in Tacoma, Washington, a hire that tells you everything about what happened to the first one.

The original Tacoma Narrows Bridge, nicknamed "Galloping Gertie" for the way its roadway undulated under wind, opened July 1, 1940 and collapsed in a 42 mph windstorm on November 7 of the same year. The engineer responsible for its slender, stiff plate girder (a solid steel wall running the length of the deck, which caught wind like a sail) was Leon Moisseiff, whose name does not appear in this brochure. The men who replaced him were charged with building a bridge that the Narrows wind could not destroy.

The replacement bridge opened October 14, 1950, at a cost of $14 million (roughly $175 million today). The key structural fix was replacing Moisseiff's solid plate girder with an open stiffening truss — a 33-foot-deep lattice of steel that let wind pass through rather than fight it. Dexter R. Smith drew the final design. F. B. Farquharson, a University of Washington civil engineering professor who had been on the original bridge filming its death throes minutes before it fell, built a 1:200 scale model and tested it in a wind tunnel on the UW campus — confirming the new design would hold at winds up to 125 mph.

Theodore Von Kármán (1881–1963) consulted on the aerodynamic analysis from the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena. His presence, and Farquharson's, gave the Authority confidence that no aerodynamic surprise lurked in the replacement design. Glenn B. Woodruff and John I. Parcel — the latter a principal of the Chicago firm Sverdrup & Parcel — rounded out the consulting board.

The brochure can be dated to the 1949–1950 construction window through two entries: W. A. Bugge did not become State Director of Highways until July 1, 1949, and he appears here in that role. Governor Arthur B. Langlie, listed as Authority Chairman, served his second term from 1949 to 1957 and attended the October 1950 ribbon-cutting.

Researched with claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 on May 24, 2026. AI-assisted — verify before citing.

Highlights

  • "Theodore Von Karman — Consulting Aerodynamicist" appears in the Consulting Board section, an unusually high-profile hire that signals the Authority's determination to address the aerodynamic failure mode of the first bridge.
  • "F. B. Farquharson — In Charge of Model Tests" is listed directly below Von Karman; Farquharson was the engineer who filmed Galloping Gertie's collapse from the bridge deck on November 7, 1940.
  • The top photograph shows the completed bridge spanning the Tacoma Narrows with both towers and the full roadway deck in place, apparently taken from the Tacoma shore.
  • The bottom photograph is an aerial view of the Narrows strait; a snow-capped peak — almost certainly Mount Rainier — is visible at the upper left horizon.
  • The title panel uses script lettering for "Washington" and block capitals for the authority name and bridge name, a mid-century typographic convention that gave government documents a corporate-formal character.
  • W. A. Bugge appears twice: once as Director of Highways on the Authority board, and again as Chief Engineer of Authority in the Design and Construction Personnel section — dual roles that confirm the brochure postdates his July 1, 1949 appointment.

Further reading