Kathie's November 2013 Article

As I was cleaning out some papers recently, I came across this “RELATED STORY.” A few years ago, I visited the San Francisco Maritime Library and copied this article from their historical files. Most of you know how these things go. You find something and you are very excited, you file it for a rainy day and it is almost forgotten. I guess this will be my rainy day. The following account is from the Harry Dring papers:

The original Bay Bridge was thought about as early as the Gold Rush days, but construction did not start until 1933. It was built by the American Bridge Company. It first opened for traffic on November 12, 1936, but it was two years before the trains utilized the bridge. The San Francisco Bay Bridge opened six months before the Golden Gate Bridge. It originally carried automobile traffic on the upper deck and trucks and trains on the lower deck.

It only took a decade for the huge ferry fleet, which was so popular, to be down to four boats. In 1939, the buses began running across the Bay Bridge into a new terminal at First and Mission Streets in San Francisco. The city streetcars were rerouted accordingly.  Of course, this affected the streetcar ridership from the ferry building.  More and more people drove to work instead of taking the trains and this loss of streetcar ridership changed the city’s transportation system forever. By the 1950s, the ferry ridership was damaged forever. The businesses at the foot of Market Street went into a non-repairable slump. Buses replacing the streetcars went to the ferry building only because they had no other place to turn around.

How things have changed. Now we have a new Bay Bridge recently opened to cars both ways and where are the trains? Under the water, known as BART.

Recently, I received an email from a lady who was told her father was a singing waiter on one of the ferryboats between 1923-1927.  I told her that I was sorry, but as far as I knew there were no singing waiters on the ferryboats.  I thought about this for awhile and sent her another email stating that I had heard of a singer or singers called the “Caruso of Ferryboats.”

After some research, I found this to be correct.  In the book, San Francisco Bay Ferryboats, by George H. Harlan, it is written:  “To the fortunate commuter or occasional traveler, who might be returning from the theater late at night, an aria from the ‘Caruso of Ferries’ might be his reward.  Since Key System, Southern Pacific and Northwestern Pacific commuters all claimed at one time or another to have heard a stocky man standing fire watch on the lower deck with an extinguisher in a canvas bag over his shoulder, it may be assumed that more than one ferry deck hand earned this legendary title when the ferries still crossed the Bay.  This author can attest to having heard a marvelous operatic voice booming out over the noise of the engine and the thump of the paddles on the steamer Tamalpais.  Dick Hunter was probably the last of a long line of ‘Carusos of the Ferries,’ but his contribution was among the finest of them all.”

I only wish I could have heard one of these arias while traveling across the Bay!

As the ferries traveled the Bay on their regular routes, they were always followed by flocks of sea gulls that looked at the ferries as a constant food source. I learned recently the ferries dumped all of their garbage into the Bay, so the seagulls would gulp it down as fast as it hit the water. Of course the passengers also enjoyed feeding the birds and would bring food from home or buy it on the ferry. They liked to throw it in the air and watch the seagulls catch it.

Some of the seagulls had been injured and by their different traits the passengers named them. Every ferry on the Bay was followed by “Peg Leg Pete,” the seagull that had lost a leg in a fight with another bird. “Peg Leg Pete” was known by all of the commuters young and old. There were probably many birds that fit many descriptions.

Earle Ennis, a well known writer of the column “Ferry Tales” in the San Francisco Chronicle kept writing for several weeks even after the ferries stopped operating. He wrote at length about what would the seagulls do without the ferry boats for food.

Once again I would like to give you the history of our 4S weekend. This year it is going to be held at the Sacramento  YC July 12th through July 14th.

This will be the 60th year we have come together. It all started in 1953 when four yacht clubs (Sportsmen, Sacramento, Stockton and San Joaquin) got together for an Over the Bottom Race. The host club would serve sandwiches at the end of the race. We have come a long way since 1953. Now it is a three day event with games, food, entertainment and fun.

The 4S is a wonderful event where old friendships are renewed and new friendships are made. It is a weekend like no other. I highly recommend everyone attend; you will have a marvelous time. We hope to keep the perpetual trophy!

I am sorry to say this year Keith and I will not be able to attend the 4S. We are going to Cooperstown, New York, to watch our grandson play baseball and then we have rented a car to drive home through the south. There is so much history in the south and we are looking forward to experiencing it.

Did you ever stop to think what the San Francisco Bay must have looked like on a calm night with the many ferries quietly making their trips across the bay? At night, the ferryboats underway was a beautiful thing to see. The rows of windows that were lit up reflected on the surface of the water. The above decks were dark, only the navigation lights could be seen. The pilothouses were completely dark so the officers could see with the help of the moon and stars. They depended on the lighthouses, buoys and points along the shore to know where they were going. If the officer in charge saw an unidentified object on the surface of the water, he had a powerful search light on the roof of the pilothouse he could use.

To keep the glare away from the navigator’s view as he steered the ferry over the bay waters, the cabin boy was there ready to close all of the blinds on the windows and doors of the forward cabin in order to be sure the foredeck was dark.

Our sister ferry, the Eureka, which is now berthed in retirement at the National Maritime Museum in the San Francisco Aquatic Park, made her last Golden Gate run in 1941. By this time the Golden Gate Bridge had taken over the commute for four years, which made the automobile service the Eureka had offered obsolete.

Many of the regular passengers who rode the ferries every day were very sad to see the ferries disappearing one by one and made sure they were on that last voyage.

The Eureka was built in 1890 in Tiburon and was named the Ukiah. She was originally a freight car ferry that carried trains across the Bay from Sausalito to San Francisco. In 1923, the Ukiah went in for a major remodel and was transformed into a passenger and automobile ferry and renamed the Eureka.

If you want a real treat, make time to visit the Eureka at the bottom of Hyde Street. She still has a working walking beam and on her main deck is a collection of vintage cars and trucks from the 1920s, when the NWP’s car capacity was so limited that weekenders returning to San Francisco sometimes had to wait until past midnight to board the ferry.

The Eureka is now a floating museum just waiting for visitors. Your visit will show you how the Sausalito’s engine worked so many years ago and how the cars drove on and off to get to their many destinations.

                       The Ferry Eureka,
                             sister ferry to our       
                         beloved Sausalito

In the early days on the Delta, riverboats carried passengers as well as freight up and down the river. There were regular runs from San Francisco to Stockton and Sacramento with stops in Pittsburg, Antioch, and other river towns. Steamboats were up and down the river even before California became a state, bringing people to the California gold fields.

By the late 1800s, the riverboats became pleasure boats with bars, restaurants, dance floors, and luxurious cabins, where you could board in San Francisco for a relaxing overnight cruise up the river to Stockton or Sacramento. By the 1920s, the riverboats had disappeared. They tried, but were unable to compete with the railroads and highways. This is, what I believe to be, the time people started to rush here and there, not wanting to take a leisurely ride up the river on a beautiful boat.

In 1935 a movie was made about the Riverboats called “Steamboat Round the Bend.” In that movie four riverboats, the T.C. Walker, Fort Sutter, Cherokee Leader and the Pride of the River all were in a race at the end of the movie. It was all filmed on the Delta!