Irving Morrow (1884–1952): Designer of Golden Gate Bridge "Above the Waterline"

SF Chronicle Image of Morrow

There are names that cling to great works, and others that quietly shape them. Irving Morrow belongs to the latter—an artist-architect whose hand defined the Golden Gate Bridge as the world knows it, even as history nearly let him slip beneath its span.

Born in Oakland and trained at the University of California and the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris, Morrow was not an engineer but something rarer in American infrastructure: a designer with a poetic eye. When he joined the Golden Gate Bridge project in 1930 as consulting architect, the essential structure had already been conceived under chief engineer Joseph Strauss. What remained was everything the public would see—and remember.

Morrow took on that task with unusual authority. He was, by his own description, responsible for everything “above the waterline.” It was no small domain. The great towers—now among the most recognizable forms in the world—were refined under his hand. He softened their mass with Art Deco verticality, carving the steel into stepped, fluted planes that catch light and shadow, transforming brute engineering into sculpture. Contemporary accounts note that these “angled, furrowed surfaces” were distinctly his, elevating the bridge beyond mere function.

His influence extended across the entire visual experience of the crossing. The railings, the lighting standards, the toll plazas, and the rhythm of approach—all were shaped by Morrow’s insistence that infrastructure could be beautiful without compromising purpose. He designed the lighting not merely for utility, but for drama, anticipating the bridge’s nocturnal identity. Even the spacing of elements along the roadway reflects his sensitivity to proportion and movement.

Perhaps his most famous—and initially controversial—contribution was the color. While engineers and the Navy favored utilitarian grays or stripes for visibility, Morrow championed a bold alternative: “International Orange.” Far from arbitrary, it was chosen to enhance visibility in fog while harmonizing with the natural tones of the Marin Headlands and the Pacific light. As he explained at the time, the color emphasized the bridge’s contour and ensured durability against the elements.

It is difficult now to imagine the Golden Gate Bridge in any other hue; the color is inseparable from its identity, a triumph of aesthetic conviction over bureaucratic caution.

And yet, for decades, Morrow’s role went largely unheralded. Even at the 50th anniversary of the bridge, critics observed that he had been “almost forgotten,” his artistic vision overshadowed by the engineering narrative.

This neglect is not uncommon in American public works, where beauty is often treated as incidental rather than essential.

Morrow’s broader career was modest by comparison. He designed homes and contributed to major expositions, including the Court of the Ages at the Panama-Pacific International Exposition of 1915 and buildings for the Golden Gate International Exposition of 1939–40. But nothing approached the singular achievement of the bridge, where his restraint and clarity found their fullest expression.

His death, like his career, carried a note of quiet irony. In 1952, at the age of 68, Irving Morrow suffered a fatal heart attack while riding a San Francisco bus—an ordinary end for a man whose work defined one of the most extraordinary structures on earth.
At the time, as one retrospective would later remark, “hardly anyone remembered what Irving Morrow had given to us in the bridge.”

Today, every photograph of the Golden Gate Bridge—its towers rising in disciplined elegance, its color glowing against fog and sky—serves as an unspoken memorial. The engineers made it stand. Irving Morrow made it endure.

Sources: Wikipedia; San Francisco Chronicle, May 25, 1987 (pp. 52, 55) ; San Francisco Chronicle, Nov. 14, 1938 ; Alameda Times-Star, Oct. 29, 1952

Lucy R. Peckinpaugh Smallman (1840–1920): Pioneering Artist, Collector & Benefactor

Lucy Smallman gravestone

Plot 11, Lot # 125

Lucy Smallman lived a life that reads like a catalog of reinvention—artist, educator, collector, and, by the end, a quiet benefactor whose work helped shape how early Californians saw their own landscape.

She was born Lucy Adeline Briggs in Plymouth County, Massachusetts, in 1840, a descendant—according to contemporary accounts—of the Pilgrim captain Myles Standish. Like many New Englanders of her generation, she came west in the decades after the Gold Rush, arriving in California in the early 1860s, where she would remain for the rest of her life.

Her name changed often, reflecting marriages and personal upheaval—Cole, Rawson, Peckinpaugh, and finally Smallman—but her identity as an artist endured. Early tragedy marked her life; she lost both her husband and infant child within days of each other in San Francisco in the 1870s. Yet she persisted, turning increasingly toward art and teaching.

Smallman became associated with Mills College in its early years, serving as head of the art department when the institution was still located in Benicia. She later spent two decades living in the mountains of Madera County and in Napa Valley, landscapes that would inform her work and sensibility as a painter.

Her artistic reputation rested largely on botanical studies and California landscapes, rendered with a precision that blurred the line between art and science. Late in life, she assembled and donated a remarkable collection to what was then the Oakland Public Museum: fifty paintings of California wildflowers, carefully organized by floral family and labeled with both common and scientific names. The exhibit was noted for its accuracy of detail and color—suggesting not just artistic talent, but a naturalist’s discipline.

That gift, like much of Smallman’s life, was both personal and public—an attempt to preserve the natural beauty of California in a form that could educate as well as inspire. It was also part of a broader contribution: she donated relics of the colonial era and Native American works to the museum, helping to build an early civic collection that reflected California’s layered past.

She died at her home on Cuthbert Street in Oakland’s Fruitvale district, remembered in the newspapers as a “pioneer artist.” The phrase is apt, though perhaps incomplete. Smallman was not simply among the first artists in California—she was among those who helped define what California art could be: rooted in place, attentive to nature, and conscious of history.

Her paintings, like the flowers they depict, were meant to endure—pressed, cataloged, and remembered long after the landscape itself had begun to change.

Sources: Oakland Tribune obituary (Feb. 23, 1920); Oakland Tribune exhibit notice (June 25, 1947); AskArt/biographical records on Lucy Adeline Briggs Cole Rawson Peckinpaugh Smallman; Find a Grave

 

Ingemar Lundquist (1921–2007): Prolific Medical Device Inventor

Obituary Photo

Plot 33

Ingemar Henry Lundquist belonged to a generation of engineers who quietly reshaped modern medicine—not through public acclaim, but through the steady accumulation of ideas, patents, and practical devices that found their way into operating rooms around the world.

Born in Stockholm, Sweden, on October 19, 1921, Lundquist was trained as a mechanical engineer at the Stockholm Institute of Technology, graduating in 1945. Like many European engineers of his era, he looked westward after the war. By 1948, he had immigrated to the United States, becoming a citizen just two years later.

What distinguished Lundquist was not simply technical skill, but range. Over the course of his career, he was credited with more than one hundred U.S. patents—many of them focused on medical devices at a time when engineering and medicine were only beginning to converge in the ways we now take for granted.

His early work helped advance cardiovascular treatment, including contributions to the development of catheter-based angioplasty systems—technology that would become foundational in treating blocked arteries without open surgery. Working with Bay Area firms, including Advanced Cardiovascular Systems in Santa Clara, Lundquist helped design and refine early-generation devices that allowed physicians to physically open narrowed vessels.

Lundquist Catheter steering mechanism patent drawing 

From there, his patents expanded across a wide medical landscape. A review of his filings shows a consistent focus on minimally invasive tools and delivery systems, including:

• Catheter designs and improvements for navigating the vascular system

• Devices for treating cardiac arrhythmias, including electrode and pacing-related innovations

• Systems for delivering therapeutic agents—early precursors to targeted drug and cell delivery

• Urological and prostate treatment devices

• Orthopedic and pain-management tools designed to improve precision and reduce recovery time

Across these patents, a pattern emerges: Lundquist was less interested in a single breakthrough than in iterative refinement—making devices smaller, safer, more controllable, and more adaptable to the human body.

His work later extended into emerging areas such as biotherapeutic delivery, including systems designed to introduce stem cells or other treatments directly to cardiac tissue. The underlying idea—targeted intervention with minimal disruption—has since become a guiding principle of modern medicine.

His obituary suggests that Lundquist himself was as notable for his temperament as for his technical output. He was described as a man who loved music, travel, and convivial evenings at home, where he played piano and entertained friends. He walked beaches, sailed, and maintained what those close to him recalled as a gentle humor and an unfailing kindness.

He died peacefully in his sleep on February 25, 2007, at the age of 85.

Today, his name is not widely known outside engineering circles, but his influence is embedded—quite literally—in the tools physicians use every day. Millions of patients have benefited from procedures made possible by technologies he helped bring into being. It is the kind of legacy that rarely announces itself, but endures nonetheless.

Sources: San Francisco Chronicle obituary (March 11, 2007); Justia Patents – Ingemar Lundquist portfolio

Adolphus Frederic St. Sure (1869-1949): Federal Judge Involved in Groundbreaking Cases

Hon. Adolphus St. Sure

Adolphus Frederic St. Sure was born on March 9, 1869, in Sheboygan, Wisconsin, and came of age at a time when the American West still offered ambitious young men the chance to build both career and reputation from the ground up. He arrived in California in the 1890s and, like many lawyers of his generation, “read law” rather than attending a formal law school, entering practice in Alameda County in 1895.

His early career was rooted firmly in the civic life of Alameda. Before he was even admitted to the bar, St. Sure served as city recorder from 1893 to 1899, an office that placed him at the center of the city’s legal and administrative affairs. He later returned to municipal service as city attorney from 1915 to 1917, a period when Alameda—and the broader East Bay—was experiencing rapid growth and increasing legal complexity.

By the second decade of the twentieth century, St. Sure had established himself as one of the leading lawyers in Alameda County. In 1917, he ascended to the Superior Court bench, where he served until 1922, gaining a reputation for diligence and careful judgment. He was elevated again in 1923 to the California Court of Appeal for the First District, placing him among the most prominent jurists in Northern California.

His judicial career reached its apex in 1925, when President Calvin Coolidge appointed him to the United States District Court for the Northern District of California. Confirmed within days, St. Sure would sit on the federal bench for more than two decades, presiding over cases during a period that spanned the Great Depression, World War II, and the early Cold War. 

On the federal bench, St. Sure was not merely a passive arbiter of law but an active participant in some of the defining legal and social questions of his time. He was an early advocate for the inclusion of women on juries, drawing on his experience in Alameda County courts and describing women jurors as “conscientious, independent, [and] highly intelligent.” He also issued a groundbreaking injunction in 1939 declaring employer blacklisting of union workers illegal—an important moment in the evolution of labor rights on the West Coast. 

Obituary, San Francisco Call Bulletin

During World War II, St. Sure’s courtroom became a stage for some of the most consequential and controversial legal battles in American history. In 1942, he presided over the case of Fred Korematsu, a U.S. citizen who resisted the forced removal and incarceration of Japanese Americans. The case would ultimately reach the United States Supreme Court, where his ruling was upheld in the now-infamous Korematsu v. United States. That same year, he also signed the order transferring Treasure Island to the United States Navy, reflecting the sweeping federal authority asserted during wartime.

St. Sure took senior status in 1947 after more than twenty years on the federal bench, but remained a respected figure in the legal community until his death on February 5, 1949.

St. Sure’s career traced the arc of California’s transformation from a developing region into a modern state—while his decisions, for better or worse, left an imprint on some of the most enduring legal questions of the twentieth century.

Sources: RootsWeb, St. Sure Family Genealogy; Federal Judicial Center; Wikipedia; U.S. District Court Northern District of California Historical Materials 

The Crocker Family Monument

Rendering of Crocker Monument

Millionaire's Row

Charles Crocker rests beneath one of the most striking monuments at Mountain View Cemetery—a circular granite temple that reflects both the ambition of the railroad era and the classical tastes of the Gilded Age. [Read more about his life HERE]

The Crocker Monument was conceived in the late 1880s as a permanent resting place for one of California’s most powerful industrialists. Crocker, one of the famed “Big Four” builders of the First Transcontinental Railroad, had died in 1888. His remains, along with those of his wife Margaret Crocker, were temporarily placed in a tomb at Laurel Hill Cemetery in San Francisco until the family monument in Oakland could be completed. In December 1889 the remains of Charles and Margaret Crocker were formally reinterred in the newly finished mausoleum at Mountain View.

The monument was intended from the start to be grand. Contemporary reports described it as a structure sixty feet high, standing on a circular terrace approximately eighty feet in diameter and commanding sweeping views of Oakland, the Bay, San Francisco, and Mount Tamalpais. In 1889, the monument cost was about $100,000, the equivalent of $3.5 million in 2026 dollars.

Architecturally, the Crocker Monument was designed in the form of a classical Greek temple. The structure is circular and surrounded by fluted Ionic columns rising from a high pedestal. Above the colonnade sits a domed roof ornamented with carved laurel leaves—symbols of honor and victory drawn directly from classical antiquity. The Ionic order, known for its elegant scroll-shaped volutes atop the columns, was widely used in Greek sanctuaries and later revived during the nineteenth century as a symbol of civic virtue and permanence. For a railroad magnate who had helped bind the continent together, the symbolism was unmistakable: a temple-like memorial celebrating achievement, power, and legacy.

 

Crocker Monument (left), photo Michael Colbruno

The monument’s design was associated with prominent architects of the era. The plans were prepared by architect Willis Polk, who would later become one of the leading figures in Bay Area architecture. The architect of record is noted New York architect A. Page Brown, best known for such landmarks as the Ferry Building in San Francisco and the California State Building at the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition. He also designed a monument for Charles "Fred" Crocker at Cypress Lawn Cemetery in Colma, the eldest son of Charles and also an executive at the railroad. 

The stone itself came from California. Contractors for the monument arranged to quarry the granite from the Rocklin quarries in Placer County, which were among the most important granite sources in the American West during the nineteenth century. Large quantities of foundation stone were cut there and transported to Oakland for construction. The use of Rocklin granite ensured both durability and a distinctly California material for the memorial.

The stonework was overseen by R. C. Fisher & Co. of New York, a firm specializing in monumental construction, while the foundation and catacombs were completed locally. Beneath the circular temple lies the family burial chamber where Charles Crocker and Margaret Crocker were placed following the monument’s completion.

The setting itself reflects another layer of design history. Mountain View Cemetery was laid out by the great landscape architect Frederick Law Olmsted, whose curving roads and hillside terraces were intended to create a picturesque “rural cemetery.” The Crocker Monument occupies a commanding hillside site consistent with Olmsted’s vision—one where architecture and landscape combine to create dramatic views and contemplative spaces.

Choragic Monument in Athens

The Crocker Monument is not simply a generic “Greek temple.” Its circular form strongly resembles the Choragic Monument of Lysicrates, built in Athens in 334 BCE. In ancient Greece, the Lysicrates monument celebrated victory in a dramatic competition. In Oakland, the symbolism translated into a victory monument to industrial power. The Crockers were effectively proclaiming that Charles Crocker’s achievement — building the transcontinental railroad — was worthy of classical commemoration.  For a Gilded Age railroad dynasty that admired classical culture, the message was clear: this was a hero’s monument.

Sources: Oakland Tribune, July 11, 1889; Oakland Tribune, September 6, 1889; Oakland Tribune, December 17–18, 1889; The Morning Times (Oakland), July 12, 1889; mausoleums.com portfolio on the Crocker Monument; Wikipeida: "Choragic Monument"