The Buried Ships of San Francisco

Every day, thousands of us walk above and over the buried hulls of ships, old wharves, and cargo. Muni streetcars below the street pass right through the oaken hull of a 19th-century ship. Nearly a thousand ships came from all over the world to San Francisco in the early years of the Gold Rush. Almost fifty of them burned to the waterline in the 1851 fire; others used as warehouses were surrounded by wharves that were constantly being extended. Everything was subsequently buried as the sandy hills were leveled to push the shoreline out to deeper water. A revised historical map of Yerba Buena Cove (recently featured by National Geographic) serves as a basis for the presentation, and was recently developed by San Francisco Maritime Museum staff working with archaeologists. Copies of the map will be available for purchase.