The bridge officially opened on May 24, 1883. During the next few days, people crossed it warily, never quite putting their full weight down. Construction had taken more than a decade, and dozens had died in the process, including main engineer John Roebling, from infection following his foot getting smashed. Sure, a whole lot of heavy cars crossed the bridge, not to mention a hundred thousand people just on day one, but who knew when those cables would suddenly snap, sending everyone into the river.
Then came May 30, a holiday known as Decoration Day (today, we instead have Memorial Day). On the Manhattan side of the bridge, a 9-foot staircase took people down off the bridge’s pedestrian path. The crowd here pressed together thickly. Then people began screaming. Wait, there was a rush to leave? Clearly, severe danger threatened them all. The bridge had to be collapsing.
One scared mother stretched her hands out with her baby in them, asking people lower than her on the stairs to take it to safety. Then someone—identified as a “young girl” by newspapers—tripped and fell. This only made those behind her move forward more, crushing and killing her. Then they too fell, and more fell on top of them. Construction workers, still on duty at the scene, sprang in to loosen railings and make more room for everyone, but 12 people still died in the crush. Rumor quickly spread through the city of something much worse: The bridge had collapsed, people said, and 1,500 had died.
Once people knew the bridge still stood, rumors continued to call it highly snappable, even though nothing about the actual accident marked it as such. The following year, one solution to people’s distrust came from the unlikely mind of circus ringleader P.T. Barnum. With the bridge closed to traffic, he marched 21 elephants and 17 camels over it, to show its undeniable strength.