Union Iron Works, located in
San Francisco, California, on the southeast waterfront, was a central business within the large industrial zone of
Potrero Point, for four decades at the end of the nineteenth and beginning of the twentieth centuries.
History
The
Donahue Brothers Peter and James, Irish immigrants, founded Union Iron Works in the south of Market area of
San Francisco in 1849. After years as the premiere producer of mining, railroad, agricultural and locomotive machinery in
California, Union Iron Works, led by I.M. Scott, entered the ship building business and relocated to
Potrero Point where its shipyards still exist, making the site on the north side of the Potrero the longest running privately owned shipyard in the United States. After Bethlehem Shipbuilding Corporation bought the works in 1905, the consolidated company came to include the
Alameda Works Shipyard, located across the
San Francisco Bay in
Alameda and the
Hunter's Point shipyard to the south.In 1885, the Union Iron Works launched the first steel hulled ship on the west coast, the
Arago, built with steel from the Pacific Rolling Mills. In 1886, UIW was awarded a $1,000,000 contract to build a Naval cruiser, the
Charleston, which they completed in eighteen months. From the completion of the
Arago in 1884 to 1902, UIW built...
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