Tacoma Narrows Bridge Collapse in Color (1940)

Synopsis

The 1940 Tacoma Narrows Bridge, the first Tacoma Narrows Bridge, was a suspension bridge in the U.S. state of Washington that spanned the Tacoma Narrows strait of Puget Sound between Tacoma and the Kitsap Peninsula. It opened to traffic on July 1, 1940, and dramatically collapsed into Puget Sound on November 7 of the same year. At the time of its construction (and its destruction), the bridge was the third-longest suspension bridge in the world in terms of main span length, behind the Golden Gate Bridge and the George Washington Bridge. This movie of the collapse of the bridge was recorded on 16mm motion picture film by Barney Elliott, owner of a local camera shop. The film shows Leonard Coatsworth attempting to rescue his dog—without success—and then leaving the bridge. In 1998, The Tacoma Narrows Bridge Collapse was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant. This footage is still shown to engineering, architecture, and physics students as a cautionary tale. Elliott's original films of the construction and collapse of the bridge were shot on 16 mm Kodachrome film, but most copies in circulation are in black and white because newsreels of the day copied the film onto 35 mm black-and-white stock. Construction on the bridge began in September 1938. From the time the deck was built, it began to move vertically in windy conditions, which led to construction…

Uploader's description on archive.org

Details

Running time

4 minutes

Collection

Ephemeral Films

Subjects on the Internet Archive

• Stock Footage