Silting at the Dock of the Bay: Mud, Mudslinging, and the Fight for the San Francisco Waterfront, 1853–63
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.25071/2561-5467.1405Keywords:
sedimentation, civil engineering, harbours, waterfronts, retaining walls, bulkheads, Levi ParsonsAbstract
Between 1853 and 1863, no issue divided San Franciscans as much as the Bulkhead Bill (or Parsons Plan) that called for a seawall to wrap around the entire waterfront. The bill’s most controversial feature would have allowed a few businessmen to monopolize all waterfront transactions for 50 years as compensation for building the expensive bulkhead. By contrast, opponents characterized it as a scheme to fleece the city of revenue. On the surface, the bulkhead fight appears to be an urban question. But under the surface, it was at the core about sedimentation and the changing nature of San Francisco Bay.
References
Alta California (San Francisco), 1853–1856.
Booker, Matthew Morse. “Oyster Growers and Oyster Pirates in San Francisco Bay.” Pacific Historical Review 75, no. 1 (February 2006): 63–88.
Brands, H.W. The Age of Gold: The California Gold Rush and the New American Dream. Anchor Books, 2002.
California. Legislature. Senate. Journal of the Senate of the State of California at the Eleventh Session of the Legislature. Sacramento, 1860.
California. Legislature. Senate. “Minority Report of the Special Committee of the Bulkhead.” Appendix to the Journals of the Senate of the Eleventh Session of the Legislature of the State of California. Sacramento, 1860.
Conomos, T. John, ed. San Francisco Bay: the Urbanized Estuary. Pacific Division of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, 1979.
Chin, John L., Florence L. Wong, and Paul R. Carlson. Shifting Sands and Shattered Rocks: How Man Has Transformed the Floor of West-Central San Francisco Bay. US Geological Survey Circular 1259. Reston, 2004.
Daily Evening Bulletin (San Francisco), 1853–1887.
de Freitas, Joana Gaspar, Robert James, and Isaac Land. “Coast Studies and Society: The Tipping Point.” Coastal Studies & Society 1, no. 1 (March 2022): 3–9.
From the Sierra to the Sea: The Ecological History of the San Francisco Bay-Delta Watershed. Bay Institute of San Francisco, 1998.
Gillis, John. The Human Shore: Seacoasts in History. University of Chicago Press, 2012.
Hill, C.L. and C.A. Kofoid, eds. Marine Borers and Their Relation to Marine Construction on the Pacific Coast: Being the Final Report of the San Francisco Bay Marine Piling Committee. Published by the Committee, 1927.
Isenberg, Andrew C. Mining California: An Ecological History. Hill and Wang, 2005.
Kelley, Robert. Battling the Inland Sea: Floods, Public Policy, and the Sacramento Valley. University of California Press, 1998.
Maury, M.F. The Physical Geography of the Sea. New York, 1857.
Mosley, Stephen. “Coastal Cities and Environmental Change.” Environment and History 20, no. 4 (November 2014): 517–33.
Nash, Gerald D. State Government and Economic Development: A History of Administrative Policies in California, 1849–1933. University of California Press, 1964.
Nelson, Derek Lee. “The Ravages of Teredo: The Rise and Fall of Shipworm in US History, 1860–1940.” Environmental History 21, no. 1 (January 2016): 100–24.
Nelson, Derek Lee. “Shipworms and the Making of the American Coastline.” PhD diss. University of New Hampshire, 2018.
Pastore, Christopher L. Between Land and Sea: The Atlantic Coast and the Transformation of New England. Harvard University Press, 2014.
Purkitt, J.H. A Letter on the Water Front Improvement, Addressed the Hon. James Van Ness, Mayor of San Francisco. San Francisco, 1856.
Rawson, Michael. “What Lies Beneath: Science, Nature, and the Making of Boston Harbor.” Journal of Urban History 35, no. 5 (July 2009): 675–97.
Rawson, Michael. Eden on the Charles: The Making of Boston. Harvard University Press, 2010.
Reidy, Michael S. Tides of History: Ocean Science and Her Majesty's Navy. University of Chicago Press, 2008.
Sloan, Doris. Geology of the San Francisco Bay Region. University of California Press, 2006.
Tax-Payer’s Review and Objections to the Parsons Bulkhead Bill (Senate Bill No. 40), by a Committee of Tax-Payers. San Francisco, 1859.
The Antidote for the Poison: Abstract of Speeches and Documents Against the Parsons Bulkhead Bill, Published by the Citizen’s Anti-Bulkhead Committee of San Francisco, for General Circulation among the Masses of the People of California. San Francisco, 1860.
The Bulkhead Question Completely Reviewed. Sacramento, 1860.
The Great Monopoly. Objections to the Parsons’ Bulkhead Bill; (Senate Bill No. 167.) By Those Who Will Suffer By It. San Francisco, 1860.
United States. Congress. House of Representatives. Engineer’s Report of Certain Rivers and Harbors. Letter from the Secretary of War, Transmitting Reports of the Chief Engineer Upon the Improvement of Certain Rivers and Harbors. 41st Cong., 3d sess., 1871, H. Exec. Doc. 60.
United States. Congress. House of Representatives. Tidal Area of San Francisco Bay. Letter from the Secretary of War, Transmitting a Report Upon the Tidal Area of San Francisco Bay. 46th Cong., 3d sess., 1881, Ex. Doc. No. 93.
Williams, Frances Leigh. Matthew Fontaine Maury: Scientist of the Sea. Rutgers University Press, 1963.
Williams, Max R. “Gilmer, Jeremy Francis.” NCpedia, 1986, rev. July 2023. https://www.ncpedia.org/biography/gilmer-jeremy-francis.
Worthington, David, ed. The New Coastal History: Cultural and Environmental Perspectives from Scotland and Beyond. Palgrave Macmillan, 2018.
Downloads
Published
How to Cite
Issue
Section
License
Copyright (c) 2026 Derek Lee Nelson
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.
