Biology Reference
In-Depth Information
floor. These materials made a near-perfect blend of raw materials for the
Ideal Cement Company of Redwood City. Another company ground up
the shells from the oyster beds to make a calcium supplement for chickens
to eat on the poultry farms in the North Bay. Writes Gilliam: “Bay Area
residents who find their breakfast eggs do not crack in boiling water may
owe their thanks to an oyster who lived on the bay bottom five hundred
centuries ago.”
Local entrepreneurs tapped the bay for many other raw materials. At
Marine Magnesium workers developed an early process for extracting
magnesium from seawater. Three other companies mined sand from
shoals where high river or tidal water velocities swept away silt and mud,
leaving behind only the heavier particles. At first, this building material
was shipped by sand scow from Central Valley rivers to the bay for the
construction of bridges, roads, and buildings. In the 1930s, however, sand
miners adapted the hydraulic suction hoses once used by gold miners to
supply local construction projects. Sand sucked out of the bay in one place
was often redeposited in another to create new land out of open water.
Treasure Island, for example, is built on sand mined from the east side of
Alcatraz Island, and the Alameda Naval Air Station stands on sand from
the Presidio Shoals near the Golden Gate. Sand mining trucks can still be
seen today rolling on and off Alameda Island in the East Bay.
The sucking, scooping, and digging was not only focused on resource
extraction. In the Sacramento River bed between Collinsville and Rio
Vista, two massive dredgers were in the midst of a 25-year project to dig
out a giant plug of mining debris so that flood waters could flow more
freely out to sea, rather than backing up into the valley. Once complete,
the cut removed more soil than was excavated to create the Panama Canal,
according to Kelley.
As the Bay Area developed, the use of its shores for transportation intensi-
fied. Roads, rail tracks, docks, bridges, warehouses, military shipyards,
ferry terminals, and industry soon created a zone of traffic and commerce
all around the bay, and this growth separated neighborhoods and down-
towns from the waterfront.
The intercontinental railroad stopped short of San Francisco proper in
Oakland, unable to cross the bay. Thus the shores of the East Bay became
the region's overland transportation hub. East Bay ports and waterfronts
served as important transfer points between steamers from Central Valley
rivers and Pacific coastal trade, oceangoing ships, and the railroads and
