Foundation Document Part 1

San Francisco Maritime National Historical Park is in San Francisco, California, just inside of the Golden Gate. Congress established San Francisco Maritime National Historical Park in 1988 to preserve and interpret the history and achievements of seafaring Americans and the nation’s maritime heritage, especially on the Pacific coast. The 50-acre park is small in area but large in nationally significant cultural resources. The park uses a fleet of national historic landmark (NHL) vessels, a collection of more than 100 historic small craft, a museum collection with more than 6 million archival and museum items, a visitor center, and a research center to chronicle the lives and dreams of the men and women who tamed America’s maritime frontier.

The San Francisco Bay has long played an important role in maritime history. Native peoples plied San Francisco Bay in reed canoes long before explorers first charted America’s western coastline and the Spanish established an outpost at the site of present-day San Francisco in 1776. After gold was discovered in 1848, the sea brought waves of dreamers to the American West. They entered the Golden Gate aboard anything that could float and then raced to find their fortunes. Ships brought goods to the west and took rich western resources to the world.

The first stop for many visitors is Hyde Street Pier, which features a number of historic vessels, maritime structures, and exhibits. Past the Donkey Boiler and Wapama steam engine, the busy Shipwright Shop, and boats undergoing restoration in the Boat Shop is the 1890 ferryboat Eureka, a 299-foot double-ender with a massive single-cylinder walking beam engine. Berthed across the pier is the three-masted schooner C. A. Thayer, built in 1895 for the West Coast timber trade. After a career transporting 575,000 board feet of lumber, Thayer was modified to work in the cod fishing industry. The 1886 square-rigger Balclutha is currently host to an overnight education program. This 301-foot, steel-hulled, Age of Sail veteran rounded Cape Horn 17 times. Below deck, exhibits trace Balclutha’s three careers: carrying California grain to Europe, transporting lumber, and serving in the Alaskan salmon industry.

Also on Hyde Street Pier, the tugboat Hercules has a 151-foot oil-burner with a three-cylinder, triple expansion steam engine. Built tough for ocean towing, the 1907 riveted-steel Hercules kept busy guiding ships and barges on San Francisco Bay, as well as transporting materials south to build the Panama Canal and west for work on Pearl Harbor dry docks. At the far end of the pier are a collection of historic small craft and Alma, an 1891 San Francisco-built scow schooner. Alma’s deck was once stacked with hay and other bulk cargoes; today, she offers history sails to park visitors.

The park’s visitor center, across from Hyde Street Pier, provides a multimedia orientation to West Coast and San Francisco maritime history. Rangers and volunteers staff an information desk near exhibits, models, and artifacts. West of the visitor center, the pathways of the Aquatic Park National Historic Landmark District lead through Victorian Park to the Maritime Museum, a striking, Streamline Moderne building named for Sala Burton. This ship-like structure is filled with 1930s Works Progress Administration (WPA) artwork, including colorful, abstract murals, mosaics, sculptures, and bas reliefs. Outside the bathhouse, the Aquatic Park cove and beach are protected by the curved Municipal Recreational (Municipal) Pier.

The park’s extensive collection of artifacts, books, oral histories, photographs, vessel plans, documents, and other archival materials are located at the Maritime Research Center. Here staff assists visitors conducting research by providing access to published and archival materials and a wide range of maritime artifacts.

Each year, in partnership with the San Francisco Maritime National Park Association, the park hosts more than 10,000 local schoolchildren in hands-on, experiential education programs. The park also nurtures relationships with community groups and neighbors. Partnerships have included: staging maritime-related plays, hosting readings of Chinese American oral histories, teaching high school classes to build and launch small boats, and working with the San Francisco Senior Center to recruit and train a cadre of docents whose rich life experiences enhance learning opportunities for visitors of all ages.

The purpose statement identifies the specific reason(s) for establishment of a particular park. The purpose statement for San Francisco Maritime National Historical Park was drafted through a careful analysis of its enabling legislation and the legislative history that influenced its development. The park was established when the enabling legislation adopted by Congress was signed into law on June 27, 1988 (see appendix A for enabling legislation). The purpose statement lays the foundation for understanding what is most important about the park.

Through preservation and interpretation of historic ships, extensive museum collections, traditional maritime skills, and its San Francisco Bay setting, San Francisco Maritime National Historical Park brings America’s maritime legacy to life and promotes the understanding and enjoyment of the nation’s West Coast maritime heritage.

Significance statements express why a park’s resources and values are important enough to merit designation as a unit of the national park system. These statements are linked to the purpose of San Francisco Maritime National Historical Park, and are supported by data, research, and consensus. Statements of significance describe the distinctive nature of the park and why an area is important within a global, national, regional, and systemwide context. They focus on the most important resources and values that will assist in park planning and management.

The following significance statements have been identified for San Francisco Maritime National Historical Park. (Please note that the sequence of the statements does not reflect the level of significance.)
 

1. San Francisco Maritime National Historical Park maintains the largest and most diverse collection of national historic landmark ships in the United States, representing a pivotal period of maritime commerce on the West Coast as the industry shifted from sail to mechanical power.
2. San Francisco Maritime National Historical Park’s collection, the oldest and largest maritime history collection in the western United States, provides tangible and compelling links to maritime history and heritage and is one of the largest museum collections in the national park system.
3. Located just inside the straits of the Golden Gate, San Francisco Maritime National Historical Park preserves and shares the area’s rich legacy as America’s first major West Coast seaport, a center for maritime commerce, and a gateway for immigration and migration.
4. San Francisco Maritime National Historical Park is the premier West Coast showcase for traditional and contemporary maritime skills, perpetuated through hands-on preservation, research and education, and the continued operation of historic ships and equipment.
5. The Aquatic Park National Historic Landmark setting, including the maritime-themed architectural design and art of the Aquatic Bathhouse Building, offers easy access to an oasis of recreation and beauty in a highly urbanized area on the San Francisco Bay waterfront.

Fundamental resources and values (FRVs) are those features, systems, processes, experiences, stories, scenes, sounds, smells, or other attributes determined to warrant primary consideration during planning and management processes because they are essential to achieving the purpose of the park and maintaining its significance. Fundamental resources and values are closely related to a park’s legislative purpose and are more specific than significance statements.

Fundamental resources and values help focus planning and management efforts on what is truly significant about the park. One of the most important responsibilities of NPS managers is to ensure the conservation and public enjoyment of those qualities that are essential (fundamental) to achieving the purpose of the park and maintaining its significance. If fundamental resources and values are allowed to deteriorate, the park purpose and/or significance could be jeopardized.

The following fundamental resources and values have been identified for San Francisco Maritime National Historical Park:
 

• Historic Fleet of Ships – The fleet of six historic ships—five of which are national historic landmarks—represents a significant period in maritime commerce: the late 19th to mid-20th century. These ships provide a variety of opportunities to learn about maritime preservation and experience the development of trade methods and technologies in sailing ships and steam vessels.
• Maritime Skills – Maritime skills are paramount to the preservation and maintenance of the collection of the park’s floating cultural resources. The park perpetuates maritime skills, such as seamanship, craftsmanship, rigging, boat building, ship carpentry, and steam boiler operation, through ongoing work and educational demonstrations.
• Waterfront Recreational and Scenic Opportunities – The Aquatic Park National Historic Landmark Historic District, envisioned in 1866 and built in the 1930s as a WPA project, includes Aquatic Park cove and beach, viewing stands, the Maritime Museum Building, speaker towers, and ancillary buildings within landscaped grounds. Originally designed for recreation, the district continues to allow an urban audience to enjoy a variety of scenic and recreational opportunities.
• Aquatic Park Bathhouse (Sala Burton Building) – The white, nautical-themed, multipurpose structure, originally designed as the Aquatic Park Bathhouse and also known as the Sala Burton Building or Maritime Museum, is significant for its Streamlined Moderne architectural style and maritime-themed abstract artwork. Local artists, led by Hilaire Hiler and funded by the Federal Arts Project, created murals, sculptures, mosaics, and reliefs representing Hiler’s color theory, ships on the bay, underwater worlds, and marine life. The building has functioned as a maritime museum since 1951.
• A Center for Maritime Research – The Maritime Research Center provides access to rich sources of information about San Francisco and West Coast maritime history and culture.
• Opportunities to Understand Maritime Heritage – The park uses its iconic setting and unmatched resources to offer exceptional opportunities for public education in maritime history and tradition.
• Opportunities to Experience Vessels on the Water – The park’s ships and small craft provide visitors a rare opportunity to experience the sights, sounds, smells, and feel of the traditional maritime environment, both at the pier and on the bay.
• Collections – The park’s extensive museum, archives, library, and small craft collections provide tangible and compelling links to the diverse maritime heritage.

San Francisco Maritime National Historical Park contains other resources and values that are not fundamental to the purpose of the park and may be unrelated to its significance, but are important to consider in planning processes. These are referred to as “other important resources and values” (OIRV). These resources and values have been selected because they are important in the operation and management of the park and warrant special consideration in park planning.

The following other important resources and values have been identified for San Francisco Maritime National Historical Park:
 

• Other Historic Structures and Vessels – Historic structures and vessels, including the Lewis Ark, the tugboat Eppleton Hall, the wheelhouse from the tugboat Sea Fox, and the Tubbs Cordage Office Building, provide context for understanding maritime heritage.
• Haslett Warehouse – The Haslett Warehouse (now the visitor center and Argonaut Hotel) and exhibits provide context for understanding maritime heritage and support park operations.

Interpretive themes are often described as the key stories or concepts that visitors should understand after visiting a park—they define the most important ideas or concepts communicated to visitors about a park unit. Themes are derived from, and should reflect, park purpose, significance, resources, and values. The set of interpretive themes is complete when it provides the structure necessary for park staff to develop opportunities for visitors to explore and relate to all park significance statements and fundamental and other important resources and values.

Interpretive themes are an organizational tool that reveal and clarify meaning, concepts, contexts, and values represented by park resources. Sound themes are accurate and reflect current scholarship and science. They encourage exploration of the context in which events or natural processes occurred and the effects of those events and processes. Interpretive themes go beyond a mere description of the event or process to foster multiple opportunities to experience and consider the park and its resources. These themes help explain why a park story is relevant to people who may otherwise be unaware of connections they have to an event, time, or place associated with the park.

The following interpretive themes have been identified for San Francisco Maritime National Historical Park:
 

• Maritime Commerce: Economic – Pacific coast maritime history illustrates the vital role maritime communities played in expanding trade, bridging local and global economies, and building maritime industries that continue to fuel national development.
• Maritime Commerce: Social – The development of San Francisco and the surrounding region demonstrates how maritime trade and transportation created a social crossroads that both fostered the interchange of cultures and ideas and led to exploitation and conflict.
• Ship to Shore – The unique nature of life on the water has created a distinct maritime culture with unique social structures, rich traditions, and specialized skills that influenced the sphere of life and arts ashore.
• Technology and Change – Maritime technology developed in tension between tradition and innovation. Changes in maritime technology had profound impacts on individuals, industry, and society as a whole.
• The Maritime Environment – West Coast maritime history reveals the complex interactions between humans and the maritime environment. This insight helps us contemplate our environmental responsibility and highlights our physical, emotional, and spiritual connections to the water.