[progers7]

There's a great children's history book titled "This Bridge Will Not Be Gray" by Dave Eggers that goes into the early days of the color choice. The bridge was shipped over from east coast metal works in orange, so it was not gray to begin with. The choice to keep it orange involved some public support so I think it is unlikely that it was ever painted gray, even temporarily.

[Tabular-Iceberg]

Yes, my thinking is that if it ever was gray there would have been so much outcry that it is bound to show up in search results and be mentioned by any outlines of the bridge’s history.