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The name Golden Gate preceded the building of the bridge
by almost a century. It even preceded the Gold Rush by two years.
Was ever a place so prophetically named?
In 1846, US Army Captain John C. Frémont, together with a
contingent of his men, rowed from Sausalito to Castillo De San
Joaquín, a course which took them across the strait connecting
the San Francisco Bay to the Pacific.
Captain Frémont named the strait Chrysopylae1
"on the same principle that the harbor of Byzantium was called
Chrysoceras2."
Just imagine. There was a time not too long ago when a captain in the
United States Army was equipped to coin names in classical Greek.
1. Golden Gate
2. Golden Horn
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