San Rafael resident Fred Greene was on the bridge 25 years ago. He remembers getting there at 5 a.m. for the 50th anniversary celebrations.
There were so many people on the Golden Gate, it flattened and the crowd was ordered off the bridge.
"I remember it being really exciting," Greene said. "I don't remember being scared at all and the only memory I have of the bridge moving is when my niece and nephew said, 'It's moving!'"
There were people with crazy hats, and even a man trying to cross the bridge on his pogo stick.
"Walking on the sidewalk is one thing, but walking across the bridge with marching bands going by that was awesome," Greene said. "It's a shame they're not going to do it this year."
Unlike 25 years ago, this time there will be no bridge walk.
Perhaps even more exiting was the day the bridge opened in 1937. Barbara Campbell Hicks was only 7 years old. Little did she know, she would make news that day as one of the children that got lost in the crowd.
Today, Campbell is 82 and lives in Burlingame. She recalls everyone dressing up in western outfits. It was the theme back then. She says her parents were both working so a neighbor offered to take her.
After she got lost, officers later found her and fed her.
"They took us down to the Embarcadero police station and that night my father picked us up," she said. "My mother must have been shocked when she came home and I wasn't home."
Despite that incident, she says those were good times.
