Mare Island

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Mare Island is a peninsula alongside the city of Vallejo, California, about 23 miles northeast of San Francisco. The Napa River forms its eastern side as it enters the Carquinez Strait juncture with the east side of San Pablo Bay. Mare Island is considered a peninsula because no full body of water separates this or several other named "islands" from the mainland. Instead, a series of small sloughs cause seasonal water-flows among the so-called islands. Mare Island is the largest of these at about 3.5 miles long and a mile wide.

This area was part of Rancho Soscol, deeded to General Mariano Guadalupe Vallejo in 1844. According to the story, his favorite white mare fell off a raft while being transported across the Carquinez Straits and she avoided drowning by swimming to an island, which he named Isla de la Yegua (Mare Island) in her honor.

The Napa River widens and forms an excellent harbor between Mare Island and the mainland.

Contents 1 History 2 Late years 3 Access 4 Notes 5 References 6 External links

[edit] History

On November 6, 1850, two months after California was admitted to statehood, President Fillmore reserved Mare Island for government use. The U.S. bought Mare Island in July, 1852, for the use as a naval shipyard. Two years later, on September 16, 1854, Mare Island became the first permanent U.S. naval installation on the west coast, with Commodore David G. Farragut, as Mare Island's first base commander. Twelve years later, during the Civil War, Farragut would gain fame during the Battle of Mobile Bay in 1864, with his order of "Damn the torpedoes! Full speed ahead!"^[1]

For more than a century, Mare Island was the United States Navy's Mare Island Naval Shipyard. The growing size and number of the country's naval fleet was making older facilities obsolete and led to increased building and refitting of shipyards nationally. A 508-foot drydock was built by the Public Works Department on an excellent rock foundation of cut granite blocks. The work took nineteen years and was completed in 1891. During the Spanish-American War, a concrete drydock on wooden piles, 740 feet long, was completed after eleven years of work, in 1910. By 1941, a third drydock had been completed and the drydock number four was under construction. The ammunitions depot and submarine repair base were modern, fireproof buildings. A million dollar, three-way vehicle causeway to Vallejo was completed.^[2]

Before World War II, Mare Island had been in a continual state of upbuilding. By 1941, new projects included improvements to the central power plant, a new pattern storage building, a large foundry, machine shop, magazine building, paint shop, new administration building, and a huge storehouse. The yard was expected to be able to repair and paint six to eight large naval vessels at a time. Several finger piers had recently been built, as well as a new shipbuilding wharf, adding one 500-foot and a 750-foot berth. It employed 5593 workers at the beginning of 1939, and rapidly increased to 18,500 busily engaged by May, 1941, with a monthly payroll of $3,500,000(1941). Then came Pearl Harbor. In 1941, the drafting department had expanded to three buildings accommodating over 400 Naval architects, engineers and draftsmen. The hospital carried 584 bed patients.^[3]

Mare Island Naval Shipyeard constructed at least eighty-nine sea-going vessels. Among the more important ships & boats built were:

• 1858 USS Saginaw – frigate, wood
• 1872 USS Mohican – frigate, wood
• 1875 USS Monadnock – monitor, steel
• 1886 USS Cosmos – revenue cutter, wood
• 1904 USS Intrepid – training ship, steel
• 1907 USS Prometheus – collier, steel
• 1911 USS Jupiter – collier, steel. Later converted to aircraft carrier USS Langley
• 1913 USS Kanawha – tanker, steel
• 1913 USS Guard – revenue cutter, steel
• 1913 USS Palos – gunboat, steel
• 1913 USS Monocacy – gunboat, steel
• 1914 USS Maumee – tanker, steel
• 1915 USS Cuyama – tanker, steel
• 1916 USS Shaw, destroyer - steel
• 1916 USS California – battleship, steel (32,500 ton)
• 1916 USS Caldwell – destroyer, steel
• 1917 Fifteen submarine chasers - wood
• 1917–20 Fairfax, Taylor, Boggs, Kilty, Ward, Kennison, Claxton, Hamilton, Litchfield, Zane, Wasmuth, Trever, Perry, Decatur – Wickes- and Clemson-class destroyers
• 1920 Montana – battleship (43,200-ton) (scrapped under terms of the Washington Naval Treaty)
• 1927 USS Nautilus – submarine
• 1928 USS Chicago – cruiser
• 1931 USS San Francisco – cruiser
• 1934 USS Smith – destroyer
• 1934 USS Preston – destroyer
• 1935 USS Henley – destroyer
• 1936 USS Pompano – submarine
• 1936 USS Sturgeon – submarine
• 1937 USS Swordfish – submarine
• 1939 USS Fulton – submarine tender
• 1939 USS Tuna –submarine
• 1939 USS Gudgeon – submarine

With the prelude to, and the outbreak of WW II, the Mare Island Naval Shipyard specialized in submarines, and other than a few submarine tenders, no more surface ships were built there. With the advent of underwater nucler power in the mid-1950s, the shipyard became one of the few that built and overhauled nuclear submarines, including several Polaris submarines.

• 1941 USS Sperry - submarine tender^[4]
• 1941 USS Silversides - submarine^[5]
• 1941 USS Trigger - submarine^[6]
• 1942 USS Bushnell - submarine tender^[7]
• 1942 USS Wahoo - submarine^[8]
• 1942 USS Whale - submarine^[9]
• 1942 USS Sunfish - submarine^[10]
• 1942 USS Tunny - submarine^[11]
• 1942 USS Tinosa - submarine^[12]
• 1942 USS Tullibee - submarine^[13]
• 1943 USS Howard W. Gilmore - submarine tender^[14]
• 1943 USS Seahorse - submarine^[15]
• 1943 USS Skate - submarine^[16]
• 1943 USS Tang - submarine^[17]
• 1943 USS Tilefish - submarine^[18]
• 1944 USS Spadefish - submarine^[19]
• 1944 USS Trepang - submarine^[20]
• 1944 USS Spot - submarine^[21]
• 1944 USS Springer - submarine^[22]
• 1945 USS Nereus - submarine tender^[23]
• 1945 USS Stickleback - submarine^[24]
• 1947 USS Tiru - submarine^[25]
• 1957 USS Grayback - submarine^[26]
• 1957 USS Sargo - submarine^[27]
• 1959 USS Halibut - submarine^[28]
• 1959 USS Theodore Roosevelt - submarine^[29]
• 1960 USS Scamp - submarine^[30]
• 1961 USS Permit - submarine^[31]
• 1961 USS Plunger - submarine^[32]
• 1962 USS Andrew Jackson - submarine^[33]
• 1963 USS Woodrow Wilson - submarine^[34]
• 1963 USS Daniel Boone - submarine^[35]
• 1963 USS Stonewall Jackson - submarine^[36]
• 1965 USS Kamehameha - submarine^[37]
• 1965 USS Mariano G. Vallejo - submarine^[38]
• 1967 USS Gurnard - submarine^[39]
• 1968 USS Guitarro - submarine^[40]
• 1969 USS Hawkbill - submarine^[41]
• 1969 USS Pintado - submarine^[42]
• 1970 USS Drum - submarine^[43]

[edit] Late years

In 1969, the US Navy transferred its (Vietnam War) Brown Water Navy Riverine Training Forces from Coronado, California, to Mare Island. Swift Boats (Patrol Craft Fast-PCF), and PBRs (Patrol Boat River), among other types of riverine craft, conducted boat operations through out the currently named Napa-Sonoma Marshes State Wildlife Area, which are located on the north and west portions of Mare Island. Mare Island Naval Base was deactivated during the 1995 cycle of US base closures, but the US Navy Reserves still have access to the water portions of the State Wildlife Area for any riverine warfare training being conducted from their new base in Sacramento, California.

[edit] Access

Mare Island can be accessed by State Route 37 on its north side, as well as by Interstate 80 via the Mare Island Causeway and Tennessee Street, a designated route.

Mare Island is also the home of the Touro University, the US Forest Service Pacific Southwest Regional Office, and the new administrative offices of the Vallejo City Unified School District.

For information on visiting Mare Island, see:

• Mare Island Historic Park Foundation

For information on the Historic Nature of Vallejo, see:

• Vallejo Architectural Heritage Foundation
• Vallejo City Park Preservation site

[edit] Notes

1. ^ Lott, A Long Line of Ships, pp. 3-28.
2. ^ Lott, A Long Line of Ships, pp. 117-206.
3. ^ Lott, A Long Line of Ships, pp. 209-237.
4. ^ Silverstone, U.S. Warships of World War II, p.287
5. ^ Silverstone, U.S. Warships of World War II, p.195
6. ^ Silverstone, U.S. Warships of World War II, p.195
7. ^ Silverstone, U.S. Warships of World War II, p.287
8. ^ Silverstone, U.S. Warships of World War II, p.197
9. ^ Silverstone, U.S. Warships of World War II, p.197
10. ^ Silverstone, U.S. Warships of World War II, p.197
11. ^ Silverstone, U.S. Warships of World War II, p.197
12. ^ Silverstone, U.S. Warships of World War II, p.197
13. ^ Silverstone, U.S. Warships of World War II, p.197
14. ^ Silverstone, U.S. Warships of World War II, p.287
15. ^ Silverstone, U.S. Warships of World War II, p.199
16. ^ Silverstone, U.S. Warships of World War II, p.199
17. ^ Silverstone, U.S. Warships of World War II, p.199
18. ^ Silverstone, U.S. Warships of World War II, p.199
19. ^ Silverstone, U.S. Warships of World War II, p.203
20. ^ Silverstone, U.S. Warships of World War II, p.203
21. ^ Silverstone, U.S. Warships of World War II, p.203
22. ^ Silverstone, U.S. Warships of World War II, p.203
23. ^ Silverstone, U.S. Warships of World War II, p.287
24. ^ Silverstone, U.S. Warships of World War II, p.203
25. ^ Silverstone, U.S. Warships of World War II, p.203
26. ^ Blackman Jane's 1970-71, p.473
27. ^ Blackman Jane's 1970-71, p.472
28. ^ Blackman Jane's 1970-71, p.470
29. ^ Blackman Jane's 1970-71, p.406
30. ^ Blackman Jane's 1970-71, p.469
31. ^ Blackman Jane's 1970-71, p.468
32. ^ Blackman Jane's 1970-71, p.468
33. ^ Blackman Jane's 1970-71, p.403
34. ^ Blackman Jane's 1970-71, p.403
35. ^ Blackman Jane's 1970-71, p.403
36. ^ Blackman Jane's 1970-71, p.403
37. ^ Blackman Jane's 1970-71, p.403
38. ^ Blackman Jane's 1970-71, p.403
39. ^ Blackman Jane's 1970-71, p.466
40. ^ Blackman Jane's 1970-71, p.466
41. ^ Blackman Jane's 1970-71, p.466
42. ^ Blackman Jane's 1970-71, p.466
43. ^ Blackman Jane's 1970-71, p.466

[edit] References

• Blackman, Raymond V.B. Jane's Fighting Ships 1970-71. London: Jane's Yearbooks.
• Lott, Arnold S., Lt. Comdr., U.S.N. A Long Line of Ships: Mare Island's Century of Naval Activity in California. Annapolis: United States Naval Institute, 1954.
• Silverstone, Paul H., U.S. Warships of World War II. New York: Doubleday & Company, 1968.
• Steffes, James, ENC Retired: Swift Boat Down- The Real Story of the Sinking of PCF-19. (2006) ISBN 1-59926-612-1.
• 1941 Society of Naval Architects Bulletin, Harold W. Linnehan, writing as a visitor from Design section, Mare Island, California.

[edit] External links

• Mare Island is at coordinates 38°05′43″N 122°16′41″W / 38.095254, -122.278004 (Mare Island)Coordinates: 38°05′43″N 122°16′41″W / 38.095254, -122.278004 (Mare Island)