Hunters Point Naval Shipyard

Hunters Point Naval Shipyard
San Francisco
Hunters Point Naval Shipyard in 2020
Coordinates37°43′32.18″N 122°22′8.19″W / 37.7256056°N 122.3689417°W / 37.7256056; -122.3689417
TypeShipyard
Site information
Controlled byUnited States Navy
Site history
Built1870
In use1941–1974
Battles/warsWorld War I, World War II, Cold War

The Hunters Point Naval Shipyard was a United States Navy shipyard in San Francisco, California, located on 638 acres (258 ha) of waterfront at Hunters Point in the southeast corner of the city.

Originally, Hunters Point was a commercial shipyard established in 1870, consisting of two graving docks. It was purchased and built up in the late 19th and early 20th century by the Union Iron Works company, later owned by the Bethlehem Shipbuilding Company and named Hunters Point Drydocks, located at Potrero Point. Known as "The World's Greatest Shipping Yard", President Theodore Roosevelt trusted his Great White Fleet of battleships to be serviced at Hunters Point in 1907 according to historical records.[1]

The shipyard was purchased by the Navy in 1940, a year before the attack on Pearl Harbor. It began operations the next year as the San Francisco Naval Shipyard, and operated until 1974 when it was deactivated and renamed Hunters Point Naval Shipyard. Used commercially for a time, in 1986 it was taken over by the Navy again as the home port of the USS Missouri battlegroup, under the name Treasure Island Naval Station Hunters Point Annex.

The base was named redundant as part of the Base Realignment and Closure effort in 1991, and was closed permanently in 1994. Since then the site has been part of a superfund cleanup effort to remediate the remains of decades of industrial and radiological use. Parcels have been sold as they were remediated, mostly for condominium development.

  1. ^ Norby, Heather; Webb, Toni (December 2009). "Hunters Point Naval Shipyard, Commercial Drydock Area" (PDF). Historic American Engineering Record: 8.