Opened on October 14, 1950, it was built in the same location as the original Tacoma Narrows Bridge, which collapsed due to a windstorm on November 7, 1940.

The final construction cost estimate, made just prior to the bond issue, reached $13,738,000.”[1] By 1990, population growth and development on the Kitsap Peninsula caused vehicular traffic on the bridge to exceed its design capacity.

In 1998, voters in several Washington counties approved an advisory measure to create a twin bridge to span the Tacoma Narrows.

[2] The designs for the 1950 Tacoma Narrows Bridge were drawn up not long after the 1940 collapse of its predecessor, which was colloquially known as “Galloping Gertie” because of oscillations in the structure noted during its construction.

Members of the new design board included Dr. Theodore von Kármán, Glenn Woodruff, and the firm of Sverdrup and Parcel of Chicago, Illinois.

By 1943, he was working in a specially designed wind tunnel laboratory built on the University of Washington campus in Seattle.

The studies included 200 different configurations, to wind forces hitting the span at up to plus-or-minus 45-degrees perpendicular to the deck.

Then, testing was performed on a design using open strips of wind grating placed in the roadway, which added even greater stability against torsional movement.

Instead of a thin plate girder, an open-air stiffening truss with a depth of 33 feet (10 m) would form the new road deck.

On the west end stood a 450-foot (140 m) long approach viaduct with the same 8-foot (2.4 m) deep girders Gertie's main deck had.

Constructing the replacement Tacoma Narrows Bridge was delayed for nearly a decade primarily due to the demand on steel created by World War II, and the fact that the state had trouble arranging insurance for the new span.

The tower pedestals had creosote timber fenders, which were installed in 1948 to deflect marine debris and traffic, which were removed sometime between 1995 and 2000.

Harold Hills, a field engineer for Roebling's Sons Company, became the first man to cross the Narrows via the catwalks.

To begin preparations for spinning the main cables, Roebling's Sons had set up a reeling plant on the Tacoma tidal flats.

100,000,000 feet (30,000,000 m) of galvanized steel wire, the total amount needed for both main cables, began arriving in 350 pounds (160 kg) coils.

Working three shifts 24 hours per day, Roebling's Sons were delayed a few times due to weather and high winds.

In 1940, the road deck was prefabricated in 100-foot-long (30 m) sections on the Tacoma tidal flats, then barged to the site via tugboats and hoisted into place via gantry cranes installed on the main cable.

When construction of the road deck began in early March, workers installed a Chicago boom high above the roadway level, upon which prefabricated stiffening truss assemblies, each 32 by 60 feet (9.8 by 18.3 m), were hoisted into place.

Then, a series of lateral bracing struts were installed on the top and bottom of the road deck that connected to the outer steel chords.

This was the final steelwork step involved, and the deck was soon raised 1 foot 6 inches (0.46 m) on each corner to attach the suspender cables and their "jewels"[clarification needed] to the vertical stiffening truss members.

On July 24, workers from Roebling's Sons were involved in wrapping and caulking the suspender cable bands, and the railings on the sidewalks were being completed.

Traffic counts following the opening day ceremonies steadily rose in the first few years, just as they had in the four months Gertie was in service.

By the late 1980s, as developers began constructing housing and shopping mall projects in Gig Harbor, Highway 16 was expanded and realigned from a meandering two-lane country road to a four-lane freeway that stretched from Tacoma to Gorst.

These backups continued to get worse, and by 2000, the average daily count of traffic on the Tacoma Narrows Bridge was 88,000.

After a series of protests, both inside and outside of the courtroom, it was made official on October 5, 2002, as groundbreaking occurred for the new bridge.

The first earthquake occurred during construction on April 13, 1949, and knocked the north cable's 21-short-ton (19 t) steel saddle from the east tower.

During the Hanukkah Eve windstorm of 2006, the bridge was closed for the first time in its operating existence due to heavy winds but reopened approximately 6 hours later; no damage was reported.

Robert E. Drake, who had been employed by the Woodworth Company was busy with a group of men doing cable work at the west anchorage.

It was Gale's first day on the job building the stiffening truss work, and he had noticed a weld that didn't look right.

According to the Pierce County Coroner's report, he suffered a heart attack, although bridgemen believed his death was the result of electrocution.