Marin history: Tiburon’s part in naval history

With its deep-water channel and access to the San Francisco Bay, the Tiburon Peninsula has been a prime location for fisheries, ship-building and naval bases since the Indigenous Miwok people came to these shores. With the arrival of the Spanish in the 18th century, the Tiburon Peninsula was given its name and would become part of Rancho Corte Madera del Presidio, a Mexican land grant. That land was granted to Irish-born John Thomas Reed who had become a naturalized Mexican citizen and married the daughter of the Presidio commandant. Reed’s daughter, Hilarita, and her husband, Dr. Benjamin Lyford, tried to develop the peninsula into a utopian community but never found enough investors.

In 1877, the couple sold some of their land on the eastern side of the peninsula to William C. Lynde and Howard M. Hough, of the codfish firm Lynde & Hough Co. The company imported Alaskan cod to sell in California and canned the fish to sell on the East Coast, where it was made into cod liver oil. The firm ran a thriving business for almost 30 years.

In 1904, the United States Navy purchased the cod fisheries’ land, docks and buildings to construct a Pacific Coast coaling station for their fleet. Large coal storage bins were constructed along with a large gantry crane for loading the coal, and existing wharves were enlarged. Within a few years, the station handled up to 35,000 tons of coal per month. In 1908, it provided the fuel for President Teddy Roosevelt’s Great White Fleet visit to San Francisco Bay that circumnavigated the globe and established the United States as a major sea power.

With the conversion of the Navy’s fleet to oil-burning vessels, the fuel depot was decommissioned in 1931. During most of the 1930s, the site was leased by the John A. Roebling company that spun the cables for the construction of the Golden Gate Bridge and the State of California for its Nautical School that would eventually become the California Maritime Academy.

In 1940, with the threat of war approaching, the U.S. Navy reclaimed the site and converted its use to manufacturing steel-cable submarine and torpedo nets. During World War II, the Tiburon facility manufactured more than 10,000 tons of netting, along with the buoys needed to suspend them. A 7-mile net was stretched across the Golden Gate and incoming ships were escorted into the bay by net-tender vessels that could open and close the gates. Tiburon harbor nets were used to protect harbors throughout the Pacific theater of operations. Pictured is the net that stretched 7 miles from Sausalito to the San Francisco marina, as well as workers repairing a net. These photographs of African American naval personnel were taken during the Korean War after President Truman had desegregated the Navy. The Navy decommissioned the depot in 1958 and the site is now the home of the Estuary & Ocean Science Center along with Paradise Beach Park and the Tiburon Uplands reserve.

History Watch is written by Scott Fletcher, a volunteer at the Marin History Museum, marinhistory.org. Images included in History Watch are available for purchase by calling 415-382-1182 or by email at info@marinhistory.org.