Port of Redwood City - History

History

Robert O. Tripp (founder of the historic Woodside Store) and Mathias A. Parkhurst began the first lumber operation using the waterways of Redwood Creek to float coast redwoods from Woodside to San Francisco in 1850. These two men thus became the founders of Redwood City itself. The Port of Redwood City is considered the place of genesis for the shipbuilding industry on the Pacific West Coast. The first schooner was built here in 1851 by G.M. Burnham and appropriately named Redwood. Shipbuilding thrived here until the 1880s. The last wooden ship built in Redwood City, called the Perseverance, was launched in 1883.

The Port was called El Embarcadero up until at least the 1880s; the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers dredged of a 7-foot-deep (2.1 m) channel between 1886 and 1889, to yield a channel 50 feet (15 m) wide. In 1903, the Corps increased the channel width to 100 feet (30 m) and by 1911, they broadened it to 150 feet (46 m). In 1931, local and federal interests combined to deepen the channel to 20 feet (6.1 m) and widen it to 200 feet (61 m), for a lineal distance of 13,360 feet (4,070 m).

Local businessmen and civic leaders formed the Redwood City Harbor Company in the year 1912, establishing the name of the Port for the era of the early 20th century. In this period competition from the railroad limited growth of the port. A number of industrial companies, however, saw the value of the Port's location, including the Alaska Codfish Company and the Morgan Oyster Company. In particular the Pacific-Portland Cement Company, moving to the Port in 1924, substantially increased shipping activity.