       
2. TRANSFORMING THE WATERFRONT
This
shoreline’s sweeping arc put ideas
in their heads. In 1895, Augustin Macdonald
gazed at open land and imagined a railroad.
By 1901, Pacific Coast Oil began filling the
marsh to build what became the Standard Oil
refinery. Developer Fred Parr dug out the
Santa Fe Channel in the 1920s and used the
dredged earth to add 210 acres to the
harbor’s profile.
As war in Europe escalated, Parr convinced
Henry Kaiser to build shipyards here. The
enterprise further shaped the Inner Harbor
into a tidy rectangle of pre-fabrication yards
and shipways for the frenzied activity of
building wartime vessels.
In 1948, Lucretia Edwards arrived in
Richmond and fell in love with its 32 miles of
shoreline. She couldn’t believe just 67 feet
of it were open for the public. “I joined the
League of Women Voters and found buddies
who agreed with me. Then we just went
to meeting after meeting talking about how
badly the City needed waterfront parks.”
For the next 50 years, Edwards and other
activists launched petitions, raised money
and convinced officials to open miles of
wave-lapped shore.
Each
generation’s vision
shaped the view we have today. |
