Long Bridge in 1867, connecting Potrero Point, just below Steamboat Point to Hunters Point in the south, provided a solution to the detour around Mission Bay and Islais Creek. Long Bridge became an attraction for recreational fishing, Sunday buggy rides, rowing clubs, and small waterside cafes. The bridge also created an eastern boundary for fill and the rush for land began anew.
Located far from the higher-class residential areas, Mission Bay became an ideal dumping site for San Francisco’s trash. The city generated massive amounts of garbage and it had to be deposited somewhere. Soon the stench at Mission Bay helped fuel the demand for filling the polluted waterway. The rolling sandhills nearby provided an easy supply of clean fill, and the additional advantage of leveling the landscape. Still, the process progressed slowly until 1906 when Mission Bay became the dump-site of choice for the refuse and ruins left by the earthquake and fire. By 1912, it was completely filled in with the exception of a large channel dug at Mission Creek to allow ship traffic access to the commercial district inland. Mission Creek or Mission Channel is still active and bisects the filled in bay now called China Basin, home of SBC Park and the San Francisco Giants.
Mission Bay in 1853—most abandoned ships were left in Yerba Beuna Cove. Still, Mission Bay didn’t escape the city’s desire to fill in the bay. —Library of Congress
One of the largest incursions into the bay occurred after the earthquake and fire of 1906. The city wanted to exhibit its great recovery as well as celebrate the opening of the Panama Canal, and it needed land for a world fair. A massive lagoon, separated from the bay by a breakwater and situated between Black Point (Fort Mason) and the Presidio offered an ideal location. The Army Corps of Engineers used a liquid-fill technique, using sand and sediment pumped from the bay, as well as rubble from the 1906 quake, to create the area now known as the Marina District. The fill extended from Chestnut to the present day location of the Marina Green and Yacht Harbor just north of Marina Boulevard.
The subsequent Panama Pacific International Exhibition succeeded on a grand scale. When complete, the fair was razed and homes were built. Ironically, the land that celebrated the city’s recovery was seismically unstable, due to the sandy fill, and sustained major damage in the 1989 Loma Prieta Earthquake seventy-five years later.
North Beach wasn’t immune to change either; it just took longer. Meigg’s Wharf was built in 1852 on Francisco between Mason and Powell. At that time, now land-locked Francisco ran along the side of the bay. Meigg’s Wharf lasted longer than most, but eventually the city constructed a breakwater beyond the limits of that long pier. They then proceeded to fill it in. It is said today’s Fisherman’s Wharf sits on the site of Meigg’s Wharf. Not so. By 1896, the base of what had been Meigg’s Wharf resided five full blocks south of the bay and Jefferson Street, the current northern-most street along Fisherman’s Wharf. Telegraph Hill provided much of the fill between Francisco and Jefferson.
North Beach in 1866—Francisco Road skirts the beach, now located far inland due to filling in the shallows. —Library of Congress
Hunters Point, a long finger of land, protrudes out into the bay near the south end of the city. Named for an early family of settlers, access to deep water made Hunters Point valuable. Shrimpers, anchovy, and salmon fisherman and shipbuilders all took advantage of easy access to the bay. By 1867, it boasted the first permanent dry dock on the Pacific Coast. Change was slow at the Point. Seafood packinghouses, warehouses, additional dry-docks, and a few wharves, one measuring four hundred sixty-five feet long, made up the bulk of the changes. Hunters Point retained its character until the Navy moved in and took it over.
Tearing down Telegraph Hill—the job proved too expensive, but the face was torn away to help fill the bay. —Author’s collection
The winds of war in 1939 dictated a need for military shipbuilding and repair on the West Coast. The Navy purchased forty-seven acres on the Point, gaining both a foothold and dry-docks. In 1942, all aliens were evacuated, and within a few weeks, the Navy summarily seized the entire Hunters Point neighborhood. An article printed in The San Francisco News, March 10, 1942, summarized the situation.
Immediate expansion of shipyard facilities at Hunters Point on land soon to be acquired by the Navy will force at least 100 civilian families to move, it was revealed by 12th Naval District headquarters today.
The Navy announcement set no deadline for removal, but police, who were asked to serve notice on residents, told them to be prepared to move on 48-hour notice. Indications were, however, that the Navy would not require the removal for at least two weeks.
It was not revealed what machinery the Navy had set up to pay property owners or to provide them with new living quarters. All Hunters Point residents are citizens, aliens having been removed several weeks ago.
We sincerely regret these families must move, but military necessity must come before other considerations, declared Rear Adm. John Wills Greenslade.
The district is defined as the area from the water to Coleman-st and from Fairfax-av to Oakdale-av. It will be a military zone, banned to the public. The 86 homes and 23 business houses in the area have a total value of more than $250,000.
The Navy’s action set the stage for a massive filling of the shallows around the point. Hunters Point swelled to 400 percent of its original land area, creating a huge wartime shipyard, and by 1945 employed eighteen thousand people. The area lost any semblance to its original shoreline, redefining a major San Francisco landmark. The shipyards closed in 1974, and by 1980, a portion of the area was set aside for an artist’s colony. Today it marks one of the largest colonies in the country, housing over two hundred artists.
The last of San Francisco’s major landfills was at Candlestick Point next to the San Francisco/San Mateo county line. The name Candlestick Point originated with the practice of burning abandoned ships off the nearby point. As they burned, they sank into the bay and the burning masts looking like candlesticks. The Navy filled in one hundred seventy acres then failed to develop it due to the end of World War II. Locals continued dumping there, illegally.
Candlestick Park, later called 3Com Park, opened as the Giants home field in 1960, and immediately became the most hated ballpark in baseball history. It was cold beyond reason during the summer with an icy wind blowing in off the bay. If the twenty-degree chill factor didn’t drive the fans away, the inconsistent breezes, constantly changing direction, drove the players to tears. Dirt devils blew trash about the field and a pop-up could be carried anywhere. Some players included clauses in their contracts that precluded a trade to San Francisco. The Giants were happy to abandon “The Stick” to the 49ers football team, moving on to the new SBC Park located in China Basin.
The land outside Candlestick Park was purchased by the state in 1973 and set aside as a park in 1977, becoming the first urban recreation area in California. Today it’s a functioning state park favored by windsurfers taking advantage of the stiff breezes on the bay.
TEARING DOWN THE HILLS
If San Francisco wanted to be a proper city, it needed proper roads. San Francisco consisted of two civilian centers in its earliest days: the village of Yerba Buena on Yerba Buena Bay and the Mission Dolores. Travel between them required snaking around the hills and dodging the marshland. Two thoroughfares were planned to correct the situation—Market Street and the Mission Toll Road.
The
