San Francisco Naval Shipyard
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The San Francisco Naval Shipyard was a United States Navy shipyard in San Francisco, California, located on 638 acres (2.6 km²) of waterfront at Hunters Point in the southeast corner of the city. Originally a commercial shipyard established in 1870, two graving docks purchased and upbuilt in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century by the Union Iron Works, owned by the Bethlehem Shipbuilding Company, located at Potrero Point. The original docks were built on solid rock. In 1916, the drydocks were thought to be the largest drydocks in the world, for the time. At a length of over 1000 feet, they were said to large enough to accommodate the largest warships and passenger steamers afloat. Soundings showed an off shore depth of sixty-five feet. The Navy used the docks as a mid-site between San Diego and Bremerton, Washington. Much of the shoreline was extended by landfill extensions into the San Francisco Bay during the early 20th century. The Navy recognized the importance of shipbuilding and repair in the San Francisco bay and began negotiating for use and apropriation of the Hunter's Point Drydocks during World War One. A Congressional hearing on Pacific Coast Naval Bases was held in San Francisco in 1920 at San Francisco City Hall wherein city representatives, Mayor Rolph and City Engineer O'Shaughnessy and others testified on behalf of permanently siting the Navy in the Hunter's Point.
The land was again appropriated by the United States Navy at the onset of World War II and became one of the major shipyards of the west coast. Many workers, including African Americans, moved into the area to work at this shipyard and other wartime related industries in the area. After the war, the area remained a naval base and commercial shipyard, as many blue collar industries moved here. The Navy closed the shipyard and Naval base in 1994 and gave it back to the city. Right now, there is a renaissance of the Hunters Point Shipyard.
As in most industrial zones of the era, Hunter's Point has had a succession of coal and oil fired power generation facilities, and these have left a legacy of pollution, both from smokestack effluvients and leftover byproducts that were dumped in the vicinity.the Navy reacquired it in November 1941, later renaming it Hunters Point Naval Shipyard, then Treasure Island Naval Station Hunters Point Annex, and operated the yard until 1974, when it leased most of it to a commercial ship repair company. The base was entirely closed in 1994, although it continues to receive attention due to the large amounts of toxic waste remaining to be cleaned up.