Golden Gate Bridge travel guide describes the Golden Gate Bridge as "possibly the most beautiful, certainly the most photographed, bridge in the world." At the time of its opening in 1937, it was both the longest and the tallest suspension bridge in the world, with a main span of and a total height of . Before the bridge was built, the only practical short route between San Francisco and what is now Marin County was by boat across a section of San Francisco Bay. A ferry service began as early as 1820, with a regularly scheduled service beginning in the 1840s for the
Golden Gate new name. In his memoirs, John C. Frémont wrote, "To this Gate I gave the name of 'Chrysopylae', or 'Golden Gate'; for the same reasons that the harbor of Byzantium was called Chrysoceras, or Golden Horn." He went on to comment that the strait was “a golden gate to trade with the Orient.” In the 1920s, no bridge spanned the watery expanse between San Francisco and Marin in California—so when the U.S. Post Office issued a postage stamp on May 1, 1923, celebrating "The Golden Gate", the issue naturally portrayed the scene without a bridge. The schooner sailing ship in