On July 9, 1936, the Yerba Buena Shoals dredger San Joaquin was photographed active in the San Francisco Bay at one in the afternoon. The vessel worked continuously to move vast amounts of seabed sand from one underwater location to another. This heavy industrial operation was part of a massive maritime engineering project aimed at reshaping the shallow waters of the bay during the height of the Great Depression.
The relentless dredging performed by the San Joaquin was not for a standard harbor expansion, but to construct a completely artificial landmass known as Treasure Island. Engineers deposited over twenty-five million cubic yards of sediment to create the four-hundred-acre island, which was built specifically to host the 1939 Golden Gate International Exposition. The island later served as a naval station before transitioning into a residential and cultural neighborhood.
