Now is in the southern section of puget sound, which is the Washington State and Pacific Northwest great inland water. When the Transcontinental Railroad came, there was talk about one day being able to stand puget sound. It was not an undertaking anybody was prepared to do. Federalhe depression programs, like the building of the coulee dam, there were big projects happening in the Pacific Northwest. Mid1930s there was talk about creating a bridge over puget sound. It would reach from tacoma to the kit sap peninsula. This bridge was opened on the first of july in 1940. After two years of construction. Bit of aa narrows is a wind tunnel. People working on the deck began to notice movement. Lifts like airplane wing in the bridge. Almost like Horizontal Movement they began to feel a vertical lift in the bridge, especially in the center span. Bridge,s no suspension anything like this, anywhere in the Pacific Northwest. Unfamiliarity of how a big thing like this was supposed to behave. People were excited about this. There was a musical gracefulness about a bridge like this. There wasted to think not anything wrong, that it was normal. Once they got the concrete on the deck they thought it would all go away. As we went out of summer and began to get into fall and the winds picked up, our prevailing wind out of the southwest, which blows almost directly across the bridge deck, they began to notice that there was an undulation in the deck. Fall, soldiers were coming out from the military base for the novelty of riding the bridge. It would go out and kick their feet over the railing and stand on the outside of the bridge and lean out as far as they could. The center deck of the bridge would be rising, not just inches, but to a point where the undulation was so severe that or a truck and, an automobile coming in opposite directions, the headlights of the vehicle coming at you would disappear under the rolling hill of the deck. People,conservative something was horribly wrong from the very beginning. For a community that was proud of their new bridge, for the many people that participated in building the bridge, it was unthinkable that this was wrong. But the engineers began to work on the idea of some stiffening of the bridge. They thought the railings on the side could be converted into certain deep high beams and that would add some rigidity to the bridge. Structuralse minor additions, modifications were implemented, or were about to be implemented as we got through october of 1940. Onlyrly november of 1940, four and a half months after the bridge was completed, the weather begin to shift into its winter patterns. That really was the bellwether of what was about to happen. On the morning of november 7, the winds kicked up to 40 miles per hour, and they were fiercely directed right at the site of the bridge. As if the way the wind comes over the wink on an airplane wing on an airplane. Instead of the normal undulation of the bridge, the deck began to twist, began to turn, and everybody noticed immediately that that was a behavior people had not noticed before. Early in the morning of the were hundreds, if not, thousands of people who came out to watch what was happening. They started to watch this behavior. The bridge keepers, it was a toll bridge, so the bridge keepers decided they would close the bridge. That it was wrong and was not safe anymore. It was just not an action that should happen with an inanimate object of this size. One last car was coming across the bridge, even though access to the bridge was shut off. There was one less car, a man coming from his summer home, heading towards tacoma. He had a cocker spaniel with him in a car. By the time he got to the most severely moving part of the bridge deck he cannot control the automobile. The car screeched around and ended up diagonally across both lanes on the bridge. He jumped out and ran and got off the bridge. Minutesnext 30 or 40 the bridge went into a Violent Movement that no one had seen before. All of the crowds on both sides all closed in and just watched. I think everyone started to suspect that the impossible was about to happen, that the bridge was going to fail. With no one really on the a universitygely, professor who had worked on trying to solve the puzzle there was enough time for people theout there University Professor ran onto the bridge to try to get the dog out of the car. There is great footage of him. It looks like a Steven Spielberg movie. Today you watch that footage and you cannot even imagine that somebody would run out onto the , with this tearing debt, tearing deck. The dog was too scared to get out of the car. He finally got off the bridge. In the food in a few moments tour awaywed the deck from the hangers and witnesses talk about it being like listening to gunshots because. He jewels, these big bolts the cable comes down, goes through the deck and there is a big bolt to keep it from going out. Those began to pop and the cables began to snap under the force. The light standards on the bridge are just swirling across rapidly and catching on to cables. The connectiont, between two sections of the ail and there is a violent twist and tear of the deck. In the moments that followed that, huge sections began to fail. Most of the center span of the bridge underneath the big suspension cables falls way, it drops away from the bridge and plunges into puget sound. No one is killed in the incident. No one is even hurt. They demolished as much as they 1940. November of they begin to think about having to reengineer the whole thing. The clouds of war close in of the second world war. By that time they realize there is no way that they will be able to get the bridge rebuilt. Than pearl harbor happens. Critical,rds become a strategic thing. The focus shifts away from public works projects. In fact, the towers and the steel on the bridge is removed and brought into the war effort and is recycled and turned into and whatever actually, sections of the bridge, of the steel are used on the alaqsa on the alaska highway to build a bridge. It ties with the northwest in alaska. Remnants sit in the channel. Its only after the war that they begin to reconstruct another suspension bridge. In 1950, the second tacoma narrows bridge is complete. Thats the bridge we see in the distance here. The steel bridge that is standing with the steel towers in the distance. Textbookhat there is a or a reference book written about bridge into nearing bridge engineering that does not include tacoma in the index because of the tacoma narrows bridge. Its impossible for me to imagine that engineering students all over the world have seen the film of galloping gerties collapse. It is one of those spellbinding moments in engineering history. One of those disasters, those utter failures of design, that is completely captured on film. It is amazing. It is still job dropping to see hugewdropping to see a endeavor like this. A physical object move with almost, moving out of the parameters of the original design. Americaities all over there were cities that were safe havens for gangsters. Chicago. F but more than any of those other cities was st. Paul. It was estimated that 50 of minnesotans were involved in making bootleg liquor in those days. The other 50 were buying it from them. This minnesota area was also well situated to make bootleg liquor, to break the prohibition law. We had a lot of germans, and germans know how to make beer. We had more breweries per capita than almost any city in america. When you break the law and make illegal liquor you need water, you need fresh water. We had the mississippi river, only a few yards from where we are standing today. We are very close to the border of canada, so liquor could be imported and exported over the canadian border. Area was a, this safe haven for bootlegging and public enemies and gangsters. The history of the building we are in now, which is today called landmark center, but in the 1930s, the public enemies era, it was called the old federal courts building. The history here is incredible. On the fifth for is the offices of the Prohibition Bureau. The man who headed the Prohibition Bureau was the man who wrote the american prohibition law. The volstead act. It was andrew. , a congressman from it was andrew. Andrew volstead. When this was pretty old to bankd, they turned robbery, kidnapping, labor racketeering, extortion and murder. That is what this building became. Fbi, the federal bureau of investigation, with j edgar hoover, had this building as their headquarters. If these walls could talk, what notorious stories they could tell. Every majors, it gangster, kidnapper and bank robber in america lived and worked within a three block radius of where we are standing today. John dillinger. Babyface nelson. Alvin creepy carpets. All were here. People dont know that. There are no statues of these gangsters, but this was the epicenter of 1930s crime in the era of John Dillinger. The police in st. Paul, at the sent thehe century, word out to bankers, bank robbers, kidnappers, come to st. Paul. You can be here, you have to promise not to kill or rob anyone within the city limits of st. Paul. And of course pay a bribe. As long as you are under your good behavior, you are welcome in our city. The deal between the crooks and the gangsters was tolerated for almost three decades. And the people of st. Paul would see the most notorious gangsters in america, wanted men, lightbank robber don jill and dillinger walking across the street. It was like seeing a celebrity. You would not fear for your life in the 1930s because you knew they were on their best behavior. Its march of 1934. The most wanted man in america, public enemy number one, bank robber John Dillinger is living behind us in apartment 303 of st. Pauls Lincoln Court apartments. He regrouped to get his bank Robbery Group ready for a crime spree. He was here enjoying time with his girlfriend. They went to the movies one block away from us. Gained is getting weapons, getaway cars and which banks they can rob from the home base here in st. Paul. The fbi did not know this was John Dillinger, but they got hints that a strange man was living in this apartment building. The shades were always drawn to the bottom. Dillingers neighbors never got his mail. But when John Dillingers girlfriend, a beautiful menominee indian woman from wisconsin would come out on this grass and hanged up John Dillingers laundry, dressed in a halter top and short shorts. I talked to men in their 80s 70 years ago, when dillinger was here, they said, oh my god, this girl was so beautiful. They still remember dillingers girlfriend. The fbi sent a crew to knock on dillingers door. They thought it was carl hillman, which was john livedgers alias, but he above at 303. You are walking towards John Dillingers apartment. Its apartment 303. All you know it is there is something suspicious and apartment 303. This is dillingers door. He is in there with his girlfriend. She opens the door, peeks out and the fbi goes, we are here to speak to carl hellmann. The deer woman forgets her own alias. My says carl, carl, oh, husband. She says the fbi says they are staying here. She says, the jig is up, its the fbi. Your clothess, get on, he gets a machine gun, comes to this door, opened it slightly, leans out, grins at the fbi and starts firing machine gun bullets out of the store. The police and the fbi start firing back. This door is chewed up by bullets. John dillinger, not a master criminal, not a single bullet from dillingers gun hits any fbi agent. But one bullet from the fbi and the polices gun hits dillinger in the thigh. Incredibly, John Dillinger has escaped from the shootout. He lays down fire, and comes out this door. Dillinger was wounded in the leg. Here, stands youre holding a submachine gun in one hand and a gun and the other and tells his girlfriend to get the getaway car. The most wanted man in america is standing here, bleeding like a stuffed pig. Sees a man whoor he recognizes as John Dillinger, reaches under his bed, takes out a shotgun and aims it at dillinger. The kid is seconds from becoming the boy who killed john when his mother, hearing the shots, tackles her son, throws into the ground, and dillinger is not killed in st. Paul. He gets in the getaway car with his girl and he goes to wisconsin for a little rest and relaxation at the little but kenya lodge Little Bohemia lodge. The deal between the crooks and a cops fell apart. Bank robber John Dillingers tried,end was successfully, in this room. The four she was found guilty of harboring her boyfriend, John Dillinger, she tried to escape. She said she had to go to the labor of had to go to the ladies room. The federal marshals followed her. But the federal marshals stood back, allowing her to go to the bathroom, at which point she simply kept going down the hallway and tried to escape. Fortunately, the federal marshals overcame their shyness about a female, soon to be convict, grabbed her, and make sure she did not escape. The fbi was concerned that the dillinger gang would try to come here, with their machine guns, and free dillingers girlfriend. That you see by my head, federal marshals were armed with sawedoff shotguns and some machine guns, waiting gangse any members of the would show up to liberate their comrades. It never happened, but you could imagine what it was like in this room, in the sweltering heat of the summers of 1935 in 1936. When all the gangsters were here and everybody was waiting to see if other gangsters with machine guns would try to free them. In this building is the inception of prohibition that led to widespread organized crime all over america. Thats how al capone got his start as a bootlegger. 1936, this was the building where the bootleggers and bank robbers were tried and sent to how could trys, leavenworth prison, and other prisons across america alcatraz, leavenworth prison, and other prisons across america. Oklahoma is where i was born. Its one third indians, one third negroes, and one third white people. I hit the road when i was 13 years old and i did our jobs all over the country. I was amongst these people so i picked up a lot of songs. This land is your land this land is my land from california to the New York Island from the redwood forest and the gulf stream waters this land was made for you and me he is most famous for writing this land is your land. In 19 we are very proud to have his work back in oklahoma. He was an advocate for people disenfranchised. For those people who were Migrant Workers from oklahoma, kansas and texas. Themselves inund california, literally starving. He saw this as a vast difference between those who were the haves and the havenots and became their spokesman for the music. Center wasuthrie open in april of 2013. It started from his daughter, nora guthrie. The plan was to have this Research Facility in tulsa. As the concept grew into the idea of opening up this archive to a new generation, and teaching people about woodys important part in American History, this museum came to be. We consider it a place to inspire people. We want them to investigate what woody did with his talents. And inspire people to go do something of their own. When the sun come shining and i were strolling people displaced were looking for a better way of life. Some of them have lost their farms due to foreclosure. Others lost their farms due to the death toll, the drought, and all of the winds that blow their soil away. They had nothing. They were promised this garden of eden, and plenty of work. Come to california and we will have plenty of work for you. Its a wonderful place to be. When they arrived, they found out thats not what was going on. They had been the victims, often of a marketing ploy by large land owners who were trying to get very cheap labor. Because they knew if they had an over abundance of labor, they did not have to pay them much. Arrived and saw that, it did not seem right. In our country of plenty, where so many have so much to allow families to struggle so horrifically, and to degrade them in a way that makes them feel less than human, is just not acceptable. This area of the center focuses on the experience. It was such an important part of who woody was, and really started his work. Its a significant thing for us to mention. Its such an important part of our history as oklahomans. We want to make sure our young people understand the resilient people they came from. The way that they persevered in the face of this natural disaster. That was actually manmade. Had the planes not been found my they were and over cultivated, then it would not have then the death toll would not occur as it did. In this area we have some dorothy elling photos. Migrantsut the distal and what they were dealing with. Of him going to california. Then one of his scrapbooks. Its one of my favorite pages. Answershort notation, an to articles posted about him. He says, i will do everything i can to help the folks from oklahoma, dont you worry. I think that really speaks for who he was and what he was intending to do. Woodywe have lyrics that wrote. Nod toto tom joad, a John Steinbeck and the joad family. [applause] then, if you aint got the do about how people would be greeted at the border. It were told if they did not have money they cannot get into california. The, especially the young and old, died because of this pneumonia. Woody recorded very few songs of his own. We have a listening station that features 46 of his songs in his own voice. When people hear Woody Guthrie songs, they are not woody singing them, they are someone else. He spent his time traveling, in a Migrant Workers camps, in Union Organization rallies, so he did not spend a great deal of time in recording studios. Thats what makes the recordings that he did make so significant and important to us. Woody definitely had beens had themes to his writing. He wanted to make sure people were well represented in his artwork and lyrics. There are some ske