Biology Reference
In-Depth Information
trucks that served the continent. All around the bay, the “harbor to beat all
harbors” flourished.
Within the bay and delta itself, fleets of small steamers, ferries, and
other vessels carried goods and people from shore to shore. Taking the
ferry to work was a regular part of the day for the thousands commuting
to and from San Francisco.
“To the ferry commuters the Bay was more than a fragmentary glimpse
of blue water in the distance; it was a direct experience, a working part of
their lives,” writes Gilliam. “Every morning and every evening they
smelled the salt spray from the deck, heard the sound of its waves, breathed
its cool winds off the water, sensed its changes as the boat moved in re-
sponse to tides and currents. . . . Quite possibly San Francisco's reputation
as a city of serenity and of vision is due to some degree to the effect on
three generations of that twice daily journey across the waters.”
Ferries shared the bay waters with ever larger oceangoing vessels lum-
bering in and out of the Golden Gate. To accommodate these vessels, San
Francisco razed old wooden piers and built new concrete piers with wider
slips, and it expanded its port facilities south of Market Street down into
Hunter's Point. Oakland, meanwhile, saw the need for larger berths and
established the Port of Oakland in 1927. Richmond developed a long
wharf to receive oil tankers.
With such good connections both to the continent by rail and to the
world by sea, heavy industry clustered along the eastern shores of San
Pablo and Suisun bays. Indeed, so many oil refineries, explosives factories,
and steel and chemical plants located along the Contra Costa County
shore between Richmond and the Carquinez Strait that it became known
as the “Chemical Coast.”
The navy and the air force added to the region's harbor-oriented activi-
ties. In the 1930s and 1940s, the military developed new bases and air sta-
tions on all shores of the bay—from Sunnyvale's dirigible-friendly Moffett
Field and Marin's Hamilton Field, to the weapons depot at Port Chicago,
and to what was to become the nation's busiest military airfield, Travis Air
Force Base in the delta. In 1941, looking for a place to repair its Pacific
fleets, the navy also took over one of the world's largest dry docks, at the
Union Iron Works, for the Hunter's Point Naval Shipyard in San Francisco.
These facilities bolstered a long-established network of defenses for the
great coastal assets of the bay.
Amid all this maritime and military activity on the bayshore, another
kind of waterborne commerce was thriving: the delivery of the fruits, veg-
etables, grains, and animal products of California's interior to urban and
international markets via the bay.
By the 1920s, farmers upstream were expanding into new crops—fruit
and rice—aided by the introduction of irrigation water to 1.2 million acres
