Tacoma Narrows Bridge

The Tacoma Narrows Bridge — or rather, the pair of suspension bridges that span the Narrows today — replaced the notorious original "Galloping Gertie" that collapsed in 1940. The current bridges (twin spans added in 1950 and 2007) cross the deepest and narrowest part of Puget Sound between the Kitsap Peninsula and the Tacoma mainland, carrying Highway 16 west toward Bremerton and the Olympic Peninsula.

The collapse of the original bridge is one of the most famous structural failures in engineering history. The rusted wreckage of Galloping Gertie still lies on the bottom of the Narrows, preserved as an artificial reef and a Washington State dive site — it is listed on the National Register of Historic Places despite being underwater. The current bridges are visible and accessible from Point Defiance Park or from the Narrows Marina below them.

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The original Tacoma Narrows Bridge, opened in July 1940, collapsed into Puget Sound just four months later on November 7, 1940, after resonant oscillations caused by wind set the roadway undulating until it tore apart — a collapse captured on film and shown in physics classes ever since. The common explanation (that wind speed matched the bridge's natural frequency) is actually wrong; the real cause was aeroelastic flutter, a more complex aerodynamic effect. The original bridge's failure transformed the engineering of all suspension bridges built afterward.