early 1930s construction of the Oakland- San Francisco bridge – photo by Peter Stackpole
Toronto. A young Peter Stackpole shot the construction of the Bay Bridge (to Oakland) and the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco with his Leica A – the first professional quality and successfully marketed miniature camera.
The last edition of the Leica Manual (15th, printed in 1973) carried some of Stackpole’s photos including the one shown here.
The cut-line states in part, “Peter Stackpole’s photographs of the building of the San Francisco-Oakland Bay bridge were started in 1934, when he was 21. Before that, he had photographed without pay for a Hearst paper and was fired for using his first Leica [model A] on the job. ‘I guess all this makes me a pioneer’. ” By 1936 only about 57,000 Leicas had been made for sales world-wide.
Image collectors should look for old construction photos of bridges, buildings, viaducts, etc. While we can’t say you will find such photos at our 2025 events, you will find many interesting items for your collection!
Our next event is the October 16th fall fair at the Trident Hall in south Etobicoke (south-west Toronto). Details are now pinned to this site and listed in the PHSC News for September (issue 25-9).
About the post title: I first thought the Stackpole photos I recalled were of the Golden Gate bridge construction and did a Segway to “Gates Ajar”, a fancy funeral floral arrangement for the wealthier folk when I was a kid and then to the “pearly gates” of heaven.
