The Potrero View’s special History Issue in April features a cover showcasing Alison Pebworth’s map of the Phantom Coast and images of our neighborhood’s rich manufacturing and shipbuilding history. We encourage you to download this issue!
Arctic Oil Works was established on Illinois Street between 16th and 17th streets in 1883, producing refined seal and whale oil. San Francisco was the West Coast’s largest whaling port in the 1880s until petroleum replaced whale oil in the 1890s. The Arctic Oil Works pier, storage tanks, and railroad links made production and distribution highly efficient. IMAGES: Courtesy Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley
This 1880s print shows the impressive brick Union Iron Works buildings on Potrero Point. Behind looms the 250 foot high Irish Hill, where rooming houses and hotels were home to hundreds of shipyard workers. A 50-foot-high fragment visible from Illinois Street between 20th and 22nd streets is all that remains today. The two buildings in the foreground on either side of the rails are the just completed Machine Shop, which was joined in 1912. The site is considered the best-preserved 19th century industrial complex west of the Mississippi. IMAGE: Courtesy Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley
Looking south in the early 1900s from Mission Bay towards Potrero Point where major manufacturing industries played significant roles in the national economy, as well as labor and military history. The Pacific Rolling Mills, founded in 1866 as the West’s first iron and steel foundry, belches smoke at left. Cheap land, isolation from the populated, growing city to the north, and deep-water access made the site ideal for shipbuilding and other heavy industries: sugar refining, barrel making, and an electrical power station. Union Iron Works battleships are on display here. Today, new neighborhoods are being developed at Pier 70 and the Potrero Power Station. IMAGE: Courtesy Potrero Hill Archives Project
Looking west on 17th Street at Carolina Street on October 11, 1909. Jackson Park’s site to the left awaits development. The Queen Lily Soap factory building is prominent. The huge wooden industrial building was moved to 18th and Carolina streets in 1928, known today as Pioneer Square. PHOTO: Courtesy of SFMTA.com/Photo
Top of page: Alison Pebworth’s map of the Phantom Coast was created in 2008 for Groundscores at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, and included in Rebecca Solnit’s Infinite City: A San Francisco Atlas. Ms. Pebworth’s original chart painted on canvas hangs in the Potrero Branch Library at 1616 20th Street. The map layers many histories, illustrating the pre-European shoreline, where it was filled in, the site of an ancient Native American village, Irish Hill, Tubbs Cordage, and more. IMAGE: Copyright Alison Pebworth, Used with Permission
