The bridge opened on May 12, 1933, at a ceremony attended by mayor Angelo Joseph Rossi, having been designed by Joseph Strauss, chief engineer of the Golden Gate Bridge.

[1] At the time, it carried pedestrians, automobiles, streetcars, and trains.

[1] The bridge was renamed in 1980 in honor of baseball player Lefty O'Doul.

[3][4] It was retrofitted in 1999, prior to the opening of the adjacent ballpark, originally named Pacific Bell Park.

[6] The bridge has been featured as a key location in three films: The third Dirty Harry film The Enforcer (1976), the James Bond movie A View to a Kill (1985) (where Bond drives a fire truck over the opened bridge), and San Andreas (2015).