| Oakland Pier | |
| Coordinates: | 37.81°N -122.326°W |
| Address: | Oakland, California |
| Opened: | 1852 |
| Rebuilt: | 1861, 1879–1882 |
| Closed: | April 1958 |
| Other Services Header: | Former services |
The Oakland Long Wharf was an 11,000-foot railroad wharf and ferry pier along the east shore of San Francisco Bay located at the foot of Seventh Street in West Oakland. The Oakland Long Wharf was built, beginning 1868, by the Central Pacific Railroad on what was previously Oakland Point. Beginning November 8, 1869, it served as the west coast terminus of the First transcontinental railroad. In the 1880s, Southern Pacific Railroad took over the CPRR, extending it and creating a new ferry terminal building with the official station name Oakland Pier. The entire structure became commonly and popularly called the Oakland Mole. Portions of the Wharf lasted until the 1960s. The site is now part of the facilities of the Port of Oakland, while passenger train service operates at the nearby Jack London Square/Dellums Station and another nearby station in Emeryville.
The first use of the site for boats was in 1852, when Gibbons' Wharf was constructed at Gibbons' Point, westward into San Francisco Bay. In 1862, Gibbons' Point was renamed Oakland Point, and the wharf was first used as a ferry landing as part of the San Francisco and Oakland Railroad service. On November 8, 1869, it succeeded Alameda Terminal and became the western terminus of the First transcontinental railroad trains.[1]
In 1868 the Central Pacific Railroad acquired this pier and immediately began extending and improving it, renaming it the Oakland Long Wharf. The first through train on the transcontinental route left Oakland on the morning of November 8, 1869, with the inaugural west bound arrival at the Oakland wharf that evening.[2] Local commuter trains also used the pier, while trains of the Pacific Railroad (aka: "First transcontinental railroad") used another wharf in nearby Alameda for about two months in 1869 (September 6 to November 7), after which the Oakland Long Wharf became the western terminus of the Pacific Railroad as well. From there San Francisco Bay ferries carried both commuters and long distance passengers between the Long Wharf and San Francisco. The CPRR floated freight to San Francisco starting in 1871; by then the Long Wharf reached out into the Bay 11,000 feet from Oakland Point to deep water.[3] It was fully opened for business on January 16, 1871.
In 1879-1880 the Long Wharf was reconstructed by filling part of it with rocks and earth brought in from Fruitvale and from Niles Canyon, where hundreds of Chinese workers were blasting rocks.[4] About one million cubic yards of rocks and fill was estimated for this first landfill project. On this solid fill, a large depot covered in corrugated iron and glass and lit by electric lighting was constructed in 1881, creating the Oakland Pier or Mole, which opened for traffic on January 22, 1882.
The Central Pacific's operations were consolidated under the Southern Pacific in the 1880s, and in 1882 the Oakland Pier was opened about a half-mile east of the west end of the Long Wharf, which was then used only for freight until being abandoned in 1919. Freight trains served docks just south of the train shed after the original was abandoned. The mole became one of the busiest piers in the United States. A huge stained-glass window of the SP logo was placed on the western end of the train shed in 1929. When the building was demolished, it was removed and put in storage. It is now at the California State Railroad Museum in Sacramento, California.
For decades, Oakland Pier was the main intercity connection to San Francisco. SP operated ferries between the San Francisco Ferry Building and Oakland Pier for passengers traveling between San Francisco and intercity destinations to the east (Chicago) and north (Seattle). Some San Francisco-Los Angeles Coast Route trains had Oakland sections (that combined with the San Francisco sections at San Jose) and these also departed from Oakland Pier.
SP also contracted with other railroads, allowing them to utilize Oakland Pier as a passenger terminal and ferry transfer. The Atchison, Topeka, and Santa Fe Railway ran trains here between 1933 and 1937.[5] Later, between 1949 and 1958, it served as the terminal of Western Pacific Railroad's California Zephyr.
After January 15, 1939 the electric commuter trains of the East Bay Electric Lines, by then called the Interurban Electric Railway, no longer ran to Oakland Pier but instead used tracks on the lower deck of the new San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge, running to the Transbay Terminal in San Francisco. The IER trains were discontinued by Southern Pacific in July 1941. The last Southern Pacific ferry ran to San Francisco on July 29, 1958. The San Francisco–Oakland ferry service was replaced with buses over the Bay Bridge between San Francisco's Third and Townsend Depot and 16th Street Station, two miles from Oakland Pier.
Throughout the pier's existence, progressively greater portions of the bayshore tidelands were filled in. It was demolished in the 1960s to make way for an expansion of the growing container ship facilities of the Port of Oakland. The only structure that remains of the Oakland Long Wharf is the SP Mole's switchman's tower, which was restored and moved to Middle Harbor Shoreline Park. In the early 1970s, the Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) trunk line and the east portal of the BART Transbay Tube connecting Oakland with San Francisco were added near the alignment of the Long Wharf in the Port.
In order from north to south, the other moles and wharves along the Oakland shore have included:
The mole in its latter years can be seen at the beginning of the 1957 movie Pal Joey as Frank Sinatra's character arrives by train and makes his way to the ferry. It also appears in the 1952 noir film Sudden Fear starring Joan Crawford.