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Port Chicago was a
In 1931, as the Great Depression worsened, Walter Van Winkle, a business leader, proposed and succeeded in getting the name of the town changed from Bay Point to Port Chicago (after the Illinois city). The Bay Point post office operated from 1897 to 1931, when it became the Port Chicago post office, closing in 1969 when the town ceased to exist.
The July 17, 1944,
town
A town is a human settlement. Towns are generally larger than villages and smaller than cities, though the criteria to distinguish between them vary considerably in different parts of the world.
Origin and use
The word "town" shares an o ...
on the southern banks of Suisun Bay
Suisun Bay ( ; Wintun for "where the west wind blows") is a shallow tidal estuary (a northeastern extension of the San Francisco Bay) in Northern California. It lies at the confluence of the Sacramento River and San Joaquin River, forming the ...
, in Contra Costa County
) of the San Francisco Bay
, subdivision_type = Country
, subdivision_name = United States
, subdivision_type1 = State
, subdivision_name1 = California
, subdivision_type2 ...
, California
California is a state in the Western United States, located along the Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the most populous U.S. state and the 3rd largest by area. It is also the m ...
. It was located east-northeast of Martinez, at an elevation of 13 feet (4 m). It is best known as the site of a devastating explosion at its Naval Munitions Depot during World War II
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the World War II by country, vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great power ...
.
History
The area was first settled by Anglo-Americans between 1850 and 1851, including Josiah Knight and Samuel E. Strode. The first permanent settler was Daniel Cunningham. Port Chicago was originally called Bay Point. The town was created when the Bay Point Land Company, with offices in San Francisco, filed an officialplat
In the United States, a plat ( or ) (plan) is a cadastral map, drawn to scale, showing the divisions of a piece of land. United States General Land Office surveyors drafted township plats of Public Lands Surveys to show the distance and bea ...
map at the Contra Costa County Recorder’s Office. The Southern Pacific Railroad
The Southern Pacific (or Espee from the railroad initials- SP) was an American Class I railroad network that existed from 1865 to 1996 and operated largely in the Western United States. The system was operated by various companies under the ...
ran through the town.
In 1931, as the Great Depression worsened, Walter Van Winkle, a business leader, proposed and succeeded in getting the name of the town changed from Bay Point to Port Chicago (after the Illinois city). The Bay Point post office operated from 1897 to 1931, when it became the Port Chicago post office, closing in 1969 when the town ceased to exist.
The July 17, 1944, Port Chicago disaster
The Port Chicago disaster was a deadly munitions explosion of the ship SS ''E. A. Bryan'' that occurred on July 17, 1944, at the Port Chicago Naval Magazine in Port Chicago, California, United States. Munitions detonated while being loaded ...
was a deadly munitions explosion that occurred at the Port Chicago Naval Magazine. Munitions detonated while being loaded onto a cargo vessel bound for the Pacific Theater of Operations, killing 320 sailors and civilians and injuring 390 others. Most of the dead and injured were enlisted African-American sailors. The town of Port Chicago was heavily damaged by falling debris, including huge chunks of hot metal and unexploded bombs, but none of those bombs exploded. Over 300 buildings were damaged and more than 100 people were hurt, but none in the town were killed.
In 1968, all property was bought and buildings demolished by the federal government to form a safety zone around the adjacent Concord Naval Weapons Station loading docks.
The Port Chicago Highway, a route from the city of Concord
Concord may refer to:
Meaning "agreement"
* Pact or treaty, frequently between nations (indicating a condition of harmony)
* Harmony, in music
* Agreement (linguistics), a change in the form of a word depending on grammatical features of other ...
through the site of the former town, still exists in Contra Costa County. The portion that passed through the Concord Naval Weapons Station was blocked during the 1990s as a safety and security measure. Today, Port Chicago Highway is interrupted just past the town of Clyde and continues on the other side of the U.S. Army's Military Ocean Terminal, Concord (formerly the Tidal Area of the Concord Naval Weapons Station) in the unincorporated community of Bay Point Bay Point may refer to:
* Bay Point (Antarctica)
* Bay Point, California
* Bay Point (former settlement), California
* Bay Point, Florida (disambiguation)
* Bay Point (South Carolina), in Charleston, South Carolina's harbor; see Mitchelville
* ...
.San Francisco Bay Map. California State Automobile Association, 2009. Print.
References
* {{authority control Former settlements in Contra Costa County, California Former populated places in California Military in the San Francisco Bay Area Military history of California Populated places disestablished in 1969 1969 disestablishments in California