The original, 5,939-foot-long Tacoma Narrows Bridge, popularly known as "Galloping Gertie," opened to traffic on July 1, 1940 after two years of construction, linking Tacoma and Gig Harbor. It collapsed just four months later during a 42-mile-per-hour wind storm on Nov. 7, 1940.

The bridge earned the nickname "Galloping Gertie" from its rolling, undulating behavior. Motorists crossing the 2,800-foot center span sometimes felt as though they were traveling on a giant roller coaster, watching the cars ahead disappear completely for a few moments as if they had been dropped into the trough of a large wave.

The original bridge was a suspended plate girder type that caught the wind, rather than allowing it to pass through. As the wind's intensity increased, so did Gertie's rolling, cork-screwing motion -- until it finally tore the bridge apart.