Moore Dry Dock Company was a ship repair and

shipbuilding Shipbuilding is the construction of ships and other Watercraft, floating vessels. In modern times, it normally takes place in a specialized facility known as a shipyard. Shipbuilders, also called shipwrights, follow a specialized occupation th ...

company in

Oakland, California Oakland is a city in the East Bay region of the San Francisco Bay Area in the U.S. state of California. It is the county seat and most populous city in Alameda County, California, Alameda County, with a population of 440,646 in 2020. A major We ...

. In 1905, Robert S. Moore, his brother Joseph A. Moore, and John Thomas Scott purchased the National Iron Works located in the Hunter's Point section of

San Francisco San Francisco, officially the City and County of San Francisco, is a commercial, Financial District, San Francisco, financial, and Culture of San Francisco, cultural center of Northern California. With a population of 827,526 residents as of ...

, and founded a new company, the Moore & Scott Iron Works Moore had previously been vice president of the

Risdon Iron Works 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 ...

of San Francisco. Scott was nephew to Henry T. and Irving M. Scott, owners of the nearby

Union Iron Works 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. ...

, where John had risen from apprentice to superintendent. Their new business was soon destroyed by fire resulting from the

San Francisco earthquake At 05:12 AM Pacific Standard Time on Wednesday, April 18, 1906, the coast of Northern California was struck by a major earthquake with an estimated moment magnitude of 7.9 and a maximum Mercalli intensity of XI (''Extreme''). High-intensit ...

. In 1909, Moore and Scott decided to move across the Bay, and so purchased the W. A. Boole & Son Shipyard, located in Oakland at the foot of Adeline Street along the

Oakland Estuary The Oakland Estuary is the strait in the San Francisco Bay Area, California, separating the cities of Oakland, California, Oakland and Alameda, California, Alameda and the Alameda (island), Alameda Island from the East Bay mainland. On its weste ...

. In 1917, Moore bought out Scott and changed the business name to Moore Shipbuilding Company. Henry T. Scott and John T. Scott tried to establish a rival business with the Pacific Coast Shipbuilding Company, an enterprise that eventually did not outlive the World War I shipbuilding boom. The Design 1015 ship was also called the ''Moore & Scott Type''. In 1922, Moore Shipbuilding renamed to the Moore Dry Dock Company, operating primarily as a repair yard, amidst a severe lack of demand for new construction in the 1920s and early 1930s. Its shipbuilding capabilities were again promptly expanded for the

World War II World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...

boom, providing over 100 ships for the

U.S. Navy The United States Navy (USN) is the maritime service branch of the United States Department of Defense. It is the world's most powerful navy with the largest displacement, at 4.5 million tons in 2021. It has the world's largest aircraft ...

and merchant marine. Moore ranked 82nd among United States corporations in the value of World War II military production contracts. Shipbuilding ceased at war's end, but repair operations continued. In 1950, the Moore facility was the target of a union picket when sailors were having a dispute with a ship owner whose ship was in Moore's dry dock at the time. The court battle which ensued eventually led to the ''Moore Dry Dock Standards'' for Primary Picketing at a Secondary Site (

Sailors' Union of the Pacific The Sailors' Union of the Pacific (SUP), founded on March 6, 1885 in San Francisco, California, is an American labor union of mariners, fishermen and boatmen working aboard US flag vessels. At its fourth meeting in 1885, the fledgling organizatio ...

(Moore Dry Dock Co.), 92

NLRB The National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) is an independent agency of the federal government of the United States that enforces U.S. labor law in relation to collective bargaining and unfair labor practices. Under the National Labor Relations ...

547, 27 LRRM 1108 (1950)). Moore Dry Dock Company ceased operations in 1961. Its site at the foot of Adeline Street on the Oakland Estuary is now occupied by

Schnitzer Steel Industries Radius Recycling, Inc., is a scrap recycling and steel manufacturing company headquartered in Portland, Oregon. The company operates auto parts recycling, metal recycling, and steel manufacturing with locations in 26 states and two Canadian prov ...

, a large scrap metal recycling concern, based in Portland, Oregon.

W. A. Boole & Son

18 May 1901, the ''Lahaina'', the first ship built in Oakland, is launched from the yard of ''W. A. Boole & Son'' at the foot of Adeline street. Adeline street is at the easternmost part of the property that later makes up Moore. June 1901, a 3000-ton marine railway built by ''H. I. Crandall & Son'' of Massachusetts becomes operational in the Boole shipyard. 26 March 1909, it is announced that Moore & Scott have acquired the Boole shipyard for ca. $500,000.

World War 1

For World War 1 Moore Shipbuilding Company built for the US Shipping Board a number of ships, including some that become

Empire ship An Empire ship is a merchant ship that was given a name beginning with "Empire" in the service of the Government of the United Kingdom during and after World War II. Most were used by the Ministry of War Transport (MoWT), which owned them and c ...

World War 2

For the US war effort, Moore Dry Dock Company built: * Type C3-class cargo ships. * 82 of 328 type C2

United States Maritime Commission The United States Maritime Commission was an independent executive agency of the U.S. federal government that was created by the Merchant Marine Act of 1936, which was passed by Congress on June 29, 1936, and was abolished on May 24, 1950. The co ...

cargo designs ''C2-S-A1'' and ''C2-S-B1''. Some were converted to AP

Troopship A troopship (also troop ship or troop transport or trooper) is a ship used to carry soldiers, either in peacetime or wartime. Troopships were often drafted from commercial shipping fleets, and were unable to land troops directly on shore, typic ...

s. * Ashland-class dock landing ships,

Dock landing ship A dock landing ship (also called landing ship, dock or LSD) is an amphibious warfare ship with a well dock to transport and launch landing craft and amphibious vehicles. Some ships with well decks, such as the Soviet Ivan Rogov class, also hav ...

s a type of

Amphibious warfare ship An amphibious warfare ship (or amphib) is an amphibious vehicle warship employed to land and support ground forces, such as marines, on enemy territory during an amphibious assault. Specialized shipping can be divided into two types, most cru ...

. * Type R refrigerated cargo ships, also called

Reefer ship A reefer ship is a refrigerated cargo ship typically used to transport perishable cargo, which require air conditioning, temperature-controlled handling, such as fruits, meat, vegetables, dairy products, and similar items. Description ''Types ...

s, design ''R2-S-BV1''. * Seaplane

derrick A derrick is a lifting device composed at minimum of one guyed mast, as in a gin pole, which may be articulated over a load by adjusting its Guy-wire, guys. Most derricks have at least two components, either a guyed mast or self-supporting tower ...

s, design class ''YSD-11''. A

Crane Ship A crane vessel, crane ship, crane barge, or floating crane is a ship with a crane specialized in lifting heavy loads, typically exceeding for modern ships. The largest crane vessels are used for offshore construction. The cranes are fitted to c ...

.Seaplane

s, design ''YSD'', ''2db.com'' * 2 of 7 Fulton-class submarine tenders. * 5 of 9 Chanticleer-class

Submarine rescue ship A submarine rescue ship is a surface support ship for submarine rescue and deep-sea salvage operations. Methods employed include the McCann Rescue Chamber, deep-submergence rescue vehicles (DSRV's) and diving operations. List of active su ...

World War 2 Ships

Shipbuilding in Oakland and Alameda

The area of the Port of Oakland was a major shipbuilding center of the Bay Area during the war peaks that started in 1916 and 1940 and ended in 1922 and 1946. Like for the rest of the country, shipbuilding either came to a complete halt for many of the yards or proceeded at a much reduced rate in the interwar years due to the saturation of the market and during a time of arms reduction treaties and economic austerity. Mooredrydock1943

* Outer Harbor **

Union Construction Company The Union Construction Company (UCC) was a company set up in 1901 and associated with Charles Yerkes, an American associated with the London Underground at that time. It was part of the Underground Electric Railways Company of London (prior to th ...

(1918 — 1922) * Inner Harbor, north bank ** Moore Dry Dock Company (1910 — 1956) ** Hanlon Dry Dock and Shipbuilding (1918 — 1921) ** Cryer & Sons * Inner Harbor, south bank **

United Engineering Co. History United Engineering Co. (incorporated 10 October 1917, about six months after the sale of the predecessor company ''United Engineering Works'' to the Bethlehem Shipbuilding Corporation where it became their Alameda Works Shipyard, Alame ...

(1941 — 1945) *** later Todd Shipyards, San Francisco Division repair yard **

Alameda Works Shipyard The Alameda Works Shipyard, in Alameda, California, United States, was one of the largest and best equipped shipyards in the country. The only building remaining from the yard is the Union Iron Works Powerhouse, which is listed on the National ...

(1916 — 1924, 1942 — 1945) *** formerly ''United Engineering Works'' (1900 — 1916) **

Pacific Bridge Company Pacific Bridge Company was a large engineering and construction company. During World War II, Pacific Bridge Company of Alameda, California was selected to build US Navy Auxiliary Repair Docks (ARD) a type of Auxiliary floating drydock and Type B ...

General Engineering & Dry Dock Company General Engineering & Dry Dock Company was a shipbuilding and ship repair company in Alameda, California that was active from the 1920s through the 1940s. The company built ships for the Southern Pacific Railroad and the United States Coast Gua ...

** Pacific Coast Engineering **

Stone Boat Yard W. F. Stone & Son or Stone Boat Yard was a small wooden shipbuilding company in Alameda, California. To support the World War 2 demand for ships W. F. Stone & Son built tugboats, sub chasers and minesweepers. For World War 1 the shipyard, t ...

References

Bibliography

* Lane, Frederic C. ''Ships for Victory.'' Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 2001. * Arroyo, Cuahutémoc (Faculty Mentor: Professor

Leon F. Litwack Leon Frank Litwack (December 2, 1929 – August 5, 2021) was an American historian whose scholarship focused on slavery, the Reconstruction Era of the United States, and its aftermath into the 20th century. He won a National Book Award, the Pulitz ...

)
"Jim Crow" Shipyards
Black Labor and Race Relations in East Bay Shipyards During World War II. The Berkeley McNair Journal, The

UC Berkeley The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California), is a public land-grant research university in Berkeley, California, United States. Founded in 1868 and named after the Anglo-Irish philosopher George Berkele ...

br>McNair Scholars Program
- downloaded fro
Jim Crow Museum
of Racist Memorabilia at

Ferris State University Ferris State University (FSU or Ferris) is a public university with its main campus in Big Rapids, Michigan, United States. It was founded in 1884 as Big Rapids Industrial School by Woodbridge N. Ferris and became a public institution in 1950. ...

on 19 August 2007 * Veronico, Nicholas A. ''World War II Shipyards by the Bay.'' San Francisco:

Arcadia Publishing Arcadia Publishing is an American Publishing, publisher of neighborhood, local history, local, and regional history of the United States in pictorial form.(analysis of the successful ''Images of America'' series). Arcadia Publishing also runs th ...

, 2007. Ch. 5 Peninsula and East Bay Shipbuilding.
World War II Shipbuilding in the San Francisco Bay Area
Excerpt from Bonnett, Wayne. ''Build Ships!: San Francisco Bay Wartime Shipbuilding Photographs, 1940-1945''. Sausalito, Calif.:Windgate Press, 2000. . Access from

National Park Service The National Park Service (NPS) is an List of federal agencies in the United States, agency of the Federal government of the United States, United States federal government, within the US Department of the Interior. The service manages all List ...

website 20 August 2007. *Moore, James R. ''The Story of Moore Dry Dock Company: A Picture History''. Sausalito, Calif.:Windgate Press, 1994. *Moore Dry Dock Company. Progress. Oakland, 1920 ()

External links

Moore Dry Dock Company
from Shipbuilding under the United States Maritime Commission 1936 to 1950. Accessed 23 August 2007.

Photo: Oakland Estuary westward
Moore-Scott shipyard in foreground
Oil painting entitled "Wartime" - a view of the Moore Shipyards
painted by William A. Coulter in 1919. Accessed 1 March 2013.
The Moore Shipbuilding Company
Pacific Marine Review, Volume 17 (1920), pp. 59–62. Accessed 1 March 2013.
A guide to the Moore Dry Dock Company photographs, 1878-1933

Moore Dry Dock Company Ships Plans, 1768-1962
{{WWII US ships Shipbuilding companies of California Defunct shipbuilding companies of the United States Manufacturing companies based in Oakland, California History of Oakland, California Manufacturing companies established in 1905 Manufacturing companies disestablished in 1961 1905 establishments in California 1961 disestablishments in California Buildings and structures burned in the 1906 San Francisco earthquake Defunct manufacturing companies based in the San Francisco Bay Area Shipyards in California