Bay Area Iron Master Al Zampa:: A Life Building Bridges

Alfred Zampa didn't know what he was getting into when he took a construction job in 1925 on the Carquinez Bridge, one of the first to cross San Francisco Bay. Despite the risk, Zampa relished the challenge and embarked on an illustrious career that made him a local legend. His impressive feats of iron craft are evident in numerous spans, including the Bay Bridge and Golden Gate, as well as others across the country. He was one of the first to survive a fall from the Golden Gate Bridge, making him a founding member of the Halfway to Hell Club in 1936. The Alfred Zampa Memorial Bridge, named to honor the man after his death, replaced the first bridge he had worked on nearly eighty years earlier. This remarkable story of skill, grit and enduring spirit is told through oral histories collected by John Robinson and Isabelle Maynard.