Cover Story
My Richmond
By Jim Mallory
Jim Mallory was a Richmond ferry rider
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| The
Pinnacle, a new condominium homes at Brickyard Landing |
Richmond. It’s a 55-square
mile city on the northeastern corner of San Francisco Bay whose
history and its future is as inexorably tied to boats of all kinds,
including ferries, as the tides that lap its shores. In fact,
Richmond owes its very existence to being selected by the Santa Fe
Railroad as the western terminus of the company’s cross-country
rail lifeline that delivered essential goods to San Francisco. Those
goods traveled the final five miles across the bay by ferry from
Richmond’s Ferry Point. Richmond Mayor Rosemary Corbin calls the
city "the hub of the bay" because of the transportation
options that are available in all directions.
The rush for California gold
saw passenger service spring up in Richmond as the lure of riches
attracted thousands of people and Captain George Ellis began
operating schooners from Ellis landing, about where Richmond
Terminal 3 is currently located. At the tip of Point San Pablo, now
the site of Richmond Municipal Terminal 4, sardine canneries served
by about 100 sardine boats operated during the 1940s, and the last
active whaling station operated at a site between Terminal 4 and the
Point San Pablo Yacht Harbor until 1968 when it was closed after the
U.S. banned whaling. The site later burned and was torn down in
1998.
Ferry Point, the railroad
pier where Santa Fe loaded its freight cars onto ferries for the
trip across the bay to San Francisco, still stands at the end of
Miller Knox Regional Park in the southwest corner of the City.
Before the construction of the Bay Bridge East Bay residents could
load their cars onto the ferry for a trip to the City. Park
officials say funds have been allocated to renovate Ferry Point,
allowing local residents to once again fish from the restored pier.
When the United States
entered World War II Richmond played an important part in the
national defense effort as the Kaiser Shipyards, now the site of
several upscale gated housing communities in Marina Bay at the foot
of 23rd Street, turned out more than 700 cargo ships to carry war
materials to U.S. troops in faraway places. During the war, Richmond
grew from a population of 23,000 in 1940 to 123,000 by 1942 and
attracted workers from as far away as Arkansas, many of whom shared
a bed in shifts until more housing could be built.
The workers, many of them
women, launched the SS Robert E. Peary in an astounding and
record four days, 15 hours and 26 minutes after laying the first
strip of steel that became the keel. One of the ships built at
Richmond, The Red Oak Victory, was brought back to Richmond in 1999
and is being restored by a crew of dedicated volunteers, some of
whom served on the ship during World War II. Plans call for the Red
Oak Victory to be permanently docked at a new park that will be
built near the now closed Ford Assembly plant. The factory will be
the home for a historic museum organizers hope to construct as part
of the World War II Home Front National Historic Park scheduled to
open in 2003. The ship was given to the Richmond Museum of History
in 1996 by an act of Congress.
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