Fort Mason, in San Francisco, California originated as a coastal defense site during the American Civil War. The nucleus of the property was owned by John C. Frémont and disputes over compensation by the United States continued into 1968. In 1882 the defenses were named for Richard Barnes Mason, a military governor before statehood. Fort Mason became the headquarters for an Army command that included California and the Hawaiian Islands from 1904 to 1907. In 1912 the Army began building a port facility with piers and warehouses to be a home base for ships of the Army Transport Service serving Alaska, Hawaii, the Philippines and other Pacific Army posts and focus of Army supply for the Pacific.
U.S. Army transports berthed at the U.S. Army Transport Service docks at Fort Mason, CA, about 1929.
On 6 May 1932 that port facility was designated the San Francisco Port of Embarkation, modeled on the New York Port of Embarkation which supplied U.S. Army forces in World War I, to serve the Pacific. Fort Mason then became both the headquarters of the command that was the San Francisco Port of Embarkation and an element of that command. The San Francisco Port of Embarkation assumed responsibility for the Army Transport Service, the San Francisco General Quartermaster Depot at Fort Mason and the Overseas Replacement and Discharge Service at Fort McDowell, California. When war came to Europe in 1939 the New York Port of Embarkation was again operating as a port of embarkation on a World War I scale with associated camps and facilities and sub ports soon to be established. On the Pacific only the port at San Francisco was operating. The Army recognized that the relatively small port facility at Fort Mason was inadequate for supporting major wartime operations in the Pacific. In early 1941 the Army began acquiring land and facilities for major expansion in Oakland, Seattle and elsewhere in the San Francisco area. By the end of the war Fort Mason and thirteen other facilities composed the San Francisco Port of Embarkation.
Army Ports: Passengers and tons of cargo embarked during the period December 1941 – August 1945.
The San Francisco Port of Embarkation was the second largest of eight Ports of Embarkation through World War II and was disestablished 1 October 1955. It then became headquarters for the Pacific Transportation Terminal Command. It is a former United States Army post located in the northern Marina District, alongside San Francisco Bay. Fort Mason served as an Army post for more than 100 years, initially as a coastal defense site[3] and subsequently as a military port facility. During World War II, it was the principal port for the Pacific campaign.[2]
Fort Mason Center (foreground), with the Oakland hills visible to the left, and San Francisco's Russian Hill neighborhood visible to the right.
Fort Mason can be split into two distinct areas. The upper area, sometimes called Fort Mason, is situated on a headland and was the site of the original coastal fortifications. The lower area, Fort Mason Center, is situated close to water level to the west of Upper Fort Mason, and is the site of the former military port, with its piers and warehouses. The Marina Green lies to the west of Fort Mason, while Aquatic Park is to the east.
History
Earlier private ownership by John C. Frémont
The nucleus of Fort Mason was a private property owned by John C. Frémont, the explorer of the western U.S., who also spearheaded the conquest of California from Mexico, and ran as the first presidential nominee of the extant Republican Party in 1856. As alleged in a 1968 federal lawsuit[6] filed by his descendants over the 70-acre parcel then at issue, Frémont bought a 13.5-acre property in the mid-1850s for $42,000, and then improved it by about $40,000.
Appointed a major general in the Union army at the start of the Civil War, Frémont's repeated serious conflicts with President Lincoln led him to resign by late 1862. In 1863, the government seized the property without payment, by executive order of Lincoln, on the grounds it was needed for the war effort. Frémont would again contest the US presidency in 1864, running as the candidate of Radical Democracy Party, only resigning the effort when Lincoln fired a political enemy in his cabinet as a concession.
The 1968 lawsuit was perhaps the last shot of a century-long legal struggle[7] to obtain compensation for the seized realty. In 1870, the government returned property to 49 parties in the vicinity, but not to Frémont and a few others. At that time, Frémont was still very preoccupied with enough of the vast fortune he had made through gold-mining before the Civil War that the matter was unlikely of concern to him; but by 1872[8] he was in grave financial trouble he would never escape before his death in 1890. Over the years, at least 24 Congressional committees would vote to compensate Frémont, and finally in February 1898 President William McKinley signed a bill directing that the court of claims fix the compensation due. But in 1968 the Frémont heirs complained it had failed to carry out this direction, with John Frémont then recently dead and his widow Jessie over 70 years old.
The fort as government property
The Civil War prompted the construction of several coastal defense batteries located inside the Golden Gate. Initially these defenses were built as temporary wartime structures rather than permanent fortifications and one of these was constructed in 1864 at Point San Jose, as the location of Upper Fort Mason was then known. A breast-high wall of brick and mounts for six 10-inch (250 mm) Rodman cannons and six 42-pounder guns were built on the site. Excavation in the early 1980s uncovered the well-preserved remains of the western-half of the temporary battery, and it has now been restored to its condition during the Civil War.[9]
President Grover Cleveland established the Endicott Board in 1885 for the purpose of modernizing the nation's coastal fortifications. Chaired by Secretary of WarWilliam Endicott, the board recommended new defenses at 22 U.S. seaports, deeming San Francisco Harbor second only to that of New York in strategic importance. As a result, an extensive series of forts, batteries, and guns were built on the harbor, including Fort Mason.[11]
The piers and sheds of Lower Fort Mason were originally built from 1912 to warehouse army supplies and provide docking space and a base for ships of the Army Transport Service. By this time, the US Army began to build new posts in Hawaii, the Philippines, and various other Pacific islands. Most of the materiel for those posts was shipped through San Francisco. By 1915, the three piers together with their associated warehouse had been completed, and Fort Mason Tunnel driven under Upper Fort Mason to connect with the railroad network along the Embarcadero.
With these new facilities, Fort Mason was transformed from a harbor defense post into a logistical and transport hub for American military operations in the Pacific.[16] The Army ferry USAT General Frank M. Coxe provided scheduled transportation from Fort Mason to the processing center at Fort McDowell on Angel Island up to eight times per day during the war. USAT Meigs was used to transport cavalry horses from Fort Mason's pier to Fort Mills.
The San Francisco Port of Embarkation, a new command, was created on 6 May 1932 under Brigadier General Charles S. Lincoln with headquarters at Fort Mason assuming command over the Army Transport Service, the San Francisco General Quartermaster Depot at Fort Mason and the Overseas Replacement and Discharge Service at Fort McDowell, California.[17][note 1]
With the rest of the world at war since 1939, the U.S. Army began updating and improving facilities across the country, without however an improved budget. On 1 October 1940 Army Engineer Col John C. H. Lee was promoted to brigadier general, and named Commanding General, Pacific Ports of Embarkation. He set up shop at Fort Mason, and spent exactly a year improving Army port facilities from Seattle to San Diego.
During World War II, Fort Mason became the headquarters of the San Francisco Port of Embarkation, controlling a network of shipping facilities that spread across the Bay Area. Thirteen installations in the San Francisco area beyond Fort Mason were part of the San Francisco POE.[3] Oceangoing ships used 20 piers with 43 berths with the port having storage space of 2,867,000 sq ft (266,353.0 m2) in warehouses, 1,984,000 sq ft (184,319.6 m2) in transit sheds and 7,640,000 sq ft (709,779.2 m2) of open space storage.[18] Other facilities included the piers at Alameda, the Richmond Parr Terminals, an Air Force depot, the Emeryville Ordnance Shops, Hamilton Field for air shipments and the Presidio which included an animal depot. The Stockton Piers and the Humboldt Bay Piers were more distant elements of the port.[3] The largest facility in the bay was what was to become the 624.5 acres (2.527 km2) Oakland Army Base at the terminus for the transcontinental railroads.[3][18]Camp Stoneman was the principal troop staging area for and under the command of the San Francisco Port of Embarkation.[19]
During the early months of the War, Lieutenant Ronald Reagan, US Cavalry Reserve, was assigned to a planning unit ("The Backroom Boys") commanded by Colonel Phillip T. Booker.
Over the years of the war, 1,647,174 passengers and 23,589,472 measured tons moved from the port into the Pacific.[note 2] This total represents two-thirds of all troops sent into the Pacific and more than one-half of all Army cargo moved through West Coast ports. The highest passenger count was logged in August 1945 when 93,986 outbound passengers were loaded.[16]
The Korean War in the 1950s also kept the post busy, and in 1955 the San Francisco Port of Embarkation was renamed the U.S. Army Transportation Terminal Command Pacific.
Later Army transportation function
The embarkation operations continued through the early sixties. In 1965 the headquarters of the US Army Transportation Terminal Command were transferred to the Oakland Army Terminal, and most of Fort Mason's embarkation facilities fell into disuse. The Army continues to use and maintain the old officer housing. The National Park Service took over the administration of the site in the 1970s as a part of the Golden Gate National Recreation Area. In 1976 lower Fort Mason became the Fort Mason Center, a non profit organization that provides a destination for programs, events and organizations that support and reflect the evolving cultural fabric of San Francisco and the Bay Area. (GGNRA).[20][21]
Some of the old officer housing remains in use by the Army, while some is rented to the public. One of the larger buildings has been converted into a youth hostel, operated by Hostelling International USA.[22]
As a whole, the former post is now a mix of parks and gardens and late nineteenth and early twentieth century buildings that are still in use. A path follows the harbor edge, rising along the headland and offering views north past Alcatraz and west to the Golden Gate Bridge.
Operations for the United States Park Police are located in the fort, providing police services for the Golden Gate National Recreation Area in San Francisco and Marin County.
Every Friday since 2010 from March through October, an Off the Grid gathering of food trucks occurs and draws large crowds.
A technical feasibility study, under the aegis of the National Park Service and San Francisco Municipal Railway, was completed in December 2004. An Environmental Impact Statement for the extension, involving the San Francisco Municipal Railway, National Park Service and Federal Transit Administration, commenced in May 2006.[26] The Draft Environmental Impact Statement (DEIS) was completed in March 2011, and was scheduled to be reviewed by December 2011.[needs update]
Footnotes
^The much larger and more established World War I New York Port of Embarkation, which had been discontinued on 24 April 1920, was reestablished on the same date.
^Sources vary on the numbers. Wardlow, 1999, on page 99 has 1,657,509 passengers and 22,735,244 measured tons of cargo.
^Clay, Steven E. (2011). U. S. Army Order Of Battle 1919–1941(PDF). Volume 4. The Services: Quartermaster, Medical, Military Police, Signal Corps, Chemical Warfare, And Miscellaneous Organizations, 1919–41. Vol. 4. Fort Leavenworth, KS: Combat Studies Institute Press. p. 2126. ISBN9780984190140. LCCN2010022326. Retrieved 24 August 2021.
