Steamboat Point a headland marking the northeastern limit of Mission Bay, on

San Francisco Bay San Francisco Bay is a large tidal estuary in the U.S. state of California, and gives its name to the San Francisco Bay Area. It is dominated by the big cities of San Francisco, San Jose, and Oakland. San Francisco Bay drains water from a ...

. It was named for the shipyards that built and repaired

steamboat A steamboat is a boat that is marine propulsion, propelled primarily by marine steam engine, steam power, typically driving propellers or Paddle steamer, paddlewheels. Steamboats sometimes use the ship prefix, prefix designation SS, S.S. or S/S ...

s there during the 1850s to the mid 1860s.Nancy Olmsted, Mission Bay Gazeteer of Historic Places, foldout at the end of "Vanished Waters: A History of San Francisco's Mission Bay" published by the Mission Creek Conservancy
and republished by foundsf.org with their permission. From foundsf.org accessed 3/29/2015.

History

The first reference to Steamboat Point appeared on the 1852 U.S. Coast Survey Map of San Francisco, southeast of Third and Townsend Streets. H.B. Tichenor's marine railway at his shipyard for repairing ships, (the first on the Pacific coast), was shown at Second and Townsend, jutting into the bay. On the stretch of South Beach between Tichenor's railway and into the marsh just west of the point were located the boatyards of famed steamboat builders John G. North,

Domingo Marcucci Domingo Marcucci Jugo (Maracaibo, 1827 - San Francisco, 1905), was a Venezuelan born 49er, shipbuilder and shipowner in San Francisco, California. He owned or captained some of the many steamships, steamboats, ferries, and sailing ships he built a ...

, Patrick H. Tiernan and others who constructed and repaired many and most of the best of the fleet of sternwheel and sidewheel steamboats and

ferries A ferry is a ship, watercraft or amphibious vehicle used to carry passengers, and sometimes vehicles and cargo, across a body of water. A passenger ferry with many stops, such as in Venice, Italy, is sometimes called a water bus or water tax ...

that plied the bays and rivers of

California California is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States, located along the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the List of states and territori ...

Oregon Oregon () is a U.S. state, state in the Pacific Northwest region of the Western United States. The Columbia River delineates much of Oregon's northern boundary with Washington (state), Washington, while the Snake River delineates much of it ...

and

Washington Territory The Territory of Washington was an organized incorporated territory of the United States that existed from March 2, 1853, until November 11, 1889, when the territory was admitted to the Union as the State of Washington. It was created from the ...

. It was also the city's prime shipbuilding location until the mid-1860s, when the shipyards gradually moved south across the Mission Bay to Point San Quentin (or

Potrero Point Potrero Point is an area in San Francisco, California, east of San Francisco's Potrero Hill neighborhood. Potrero Point was an early San Francisco industrial area. The Point started as small natural land feature that extends into Mission Bay ...

). Subsequently, the shore line along the bay was rapidly filled in leaving only a ship channel for

Mission Creek Mission Creek (from Spanish: ''misión'') is a river in San Francisco, California. Once navigable from the Mission Bay inland to the vicinity of Mission Dolores, where several smaller creeks converged to form it, Mission Creek has long since bee ...

and Steamboat Point a small hill inland from San Francisco Bay.

References

External links

1852 Coastal Survey Map showing Mission Bay and surrounds
About Mission Bay/Mission Creek from sfsailtours.com accessed March 29, 2015. Shows Steamboat Point, circa 1852.
1857 Coastal Survey Map showing Mission Bay and surrounds, with additions to 1852 map to up to 1857
About Mission Bay/Mission Creek from sfsailtours.com accessed March 29, 2015. Shows Steamboat Point, circa 1857. Landforms of San Francisco Landforms of the San Francisco Bay Area Headlands of California Steamboat Point {{SanFrancisco-geo-stub