Mare Island Naval Shipyard history, going back 170 years to Sept. 16, 1854, when Capt. David Farragut arrived to build the Navy’s first West Coast base, will be featured at the upcoming Sept.
14-15 Founders Day festival. The annual event, hosted by the Mare Island Historic Park Foundation, features tours of the former Navy shipyard, live music, food and drinks, a fund-raising auction and other activities. “We’re celebrating the founding of this incredible shipyard that has made such an indelible mark not only on U.
S. history but on world history,” says Kent Fortner, foundation president. World War II was by far Mare Island’s most significant period, with its civilian workforce soaring to about 46,000 employees.
People from all over the U.S. and from every ethnicity came for jobs, tripling the population of Vallejo, just across the Napa River.
On Saturday, Sept. 14, there’s an exclusive two-hour “Behind the Fences” tour via luxury bus that starts at 1:45 p.m.
at the Savage & Cooke distillery, located in the heart of Mare Island’s old industrial zone. The tour starts with a cocktail at the distillery and ends with a glass of champagne at the shipyard’s Alden Park. The $75-per-person tour includes a rare opportunity to walk – on uneven ground in some spots — into historic Mare Island buildings normally off limits to the public.
They include the shipyard’s “haunted” Armory Building 77, where workers reported strange noises and ghostly figures for decades. The ghost story involves Lt. Commander Samuel Wilson, who died in the Far East in 1879 and was first buried in China.
Later, his body was exhumed, crated and shipped to Mare Island for burial there. But the boxed-up body was mistakenly left in Building 77 for several years. Wilson was finally reburied in the Mare Island cemetery in 1887.
Other stops include “Old 84,” the Navy’s first land-based prison dating to 1868. The need for such prisons stemmed from an 1850 congressional ban on the brutal use of the “cat o’ nine tails,” a whip used to discipline errant sailors. The notorious prison expanded over the years to a maximum capacity of 650 inmates, and closed after World War II.
The tour also includes Building 88, a brick structure that was a stable for horses and oxen between 1862 and 1929. Until replaced by motorized equipment, the animals served many purposes. Horses were used for mounted Marine patrols and also to pull the commandant’s carriage, fire-fighting gear, shipyard ambulances and a pay wagon – a welcome sight for early-day workers who were paid in gold or silver coin.
After the animals were gone, the building was used mainly as a storehouse. On Sunday, you can pick up a map of the shipyard at noon at the Admiral’s Mansion, located at 1065 Walnut Ave. on Officer’s Row, and take a self-guided walking tour of the shipyard’s Historic Core, Alden Park and St.
Peter’s Chapel. Docents will be stationed at key points along the tour route. The Historic Core features pre-Civil War structures, the ship launch ways, massive drydocks, the USS Mariano Vallejo submarine memorial and WWII bomb shelters.
St. Peter’s Chapel, built in 1901, is the oldest in the country. The chapel has 25 stained-glass Tiffany windows depicting Christ, St.
Peter and many other saints and angels – and even Sir Galahad. The priceless Tiffany collection is the largest of its sort under one roof west of the Mississippi. Alden Park was named for James Alden, shipyard commandant from mid-1868 to early 1869.
Alden was a sort of Johnny Appleseed in Navy uniform, organizing extensive tree-planting efforts on Mare Island – pine, poplar, locust, almond, apple, olive, bay, elm, eucalyptus, apricot, fig and willow, among others. The main Founders Day event on Sunday, a 1-4 p.m.
“Family Festival,” will be held on the grounds of the Admiral’s Mansion. There will be a military band, presentation of colors, local musicians, a bounce house and face-painting for children, beer and wine for sale for adults, food trucks, history exhibits, and a silent auction and raffle to raise funds for the Foundation. Among the auction and raffle items: unique, meticulously crafted artwork, cases of wine and wine tastings, private history tours, gift certificates from many local merchants and more.
All proceeds from the event will benefit the nonprofit foundation, which routinely holds events dealing with shipyard history, conducts tours, provides access to old documents sought by researchers, maintains the Admiral’s Mansion and St. Peter’s Chapel, and continues efforts to open a Mare Island museum to replace the one shut down due to building safety concerns. Link to Mare Island Historic Park Foundation website, with Founders Day event information: www.
mihpf.org/events — Vallejo and other Solano County communities are treasure troves of early-day California history. My “Solano Chronicles” column highlights various aspects of that history.
If you have local stories or photos to share, contact me on Facebook..
