Marinship Site, California

The structure of the shoreline of much of Sausalito today is the result of the Marinship yard, the Bechtel Corporation's massive industrial development of World War II. The company built the 210-acre yard in a few months, filling in tidal areas with soil from an adjacent hillside. Over the next three years, Bechtel employed 20,000 people to produce 93 ships, taking as little as 28 days to make a single ship. In 1949, Bechtel transferred the site to the Army Corps as a base for their post-war Pacific Island Reconstruction project. Over the years the site transformed into a commercial and recreational marina area, with the famous houseboat community forming from the debris left from the old shipyard. Some of the shipways that once held liberty ships and tankers under construction are still in place, used by marinas for yacht repair. A row of six shipways at Marinship launched all the large vessels produced at the yard. Ships were then finished at the outfitting docks to the south, one of which is now in use by the Army Corps, the other which is used as a yacht marina. The former mold loft is another of the few remaining buildings from Marinship. This building was used for the production of the full-sized, cut out patterns for the various steel ship components. Patterns were laid out on the floor, requiring lots of floor space. The molds were then taken to the cutting and welding shops. The building is now leased to various tenants, from crafts shops to small businesses.