Today I made a visit to Fisherman’s Wharf. It is a relatively popular tourist location in San Francisco and is also a historical part of the city. It looks much different now, compared to how it used to look in the past. This used to be a place where Italian immigrants had settled, in order to provide fish and marine delicacies for the gold miners who had flocked to the city in great numbers during the California Gold Rush.
It turned out to be quite a profitable business. One of the immigrants, Achille Paladini, was more successful than the others. He founded the Paladini Fish Company. Due to his success, the man was named the “Fish King.” Fisherman’s Wharf is famous for a delicacy called Dungeness Crab. This type of crab is a bit bigger than a human palm and has a lot of meat in it. This crabmeat has a very delicate, sweet taste. To this day, it is often sold out on the streets. You can even see the crab on the Fisherman’s Wharf sign. The sign looks like a ship’s steering wheel, with the crab in the middle.
The location of the city, and the Wharf itself, promote the fishing business. Because of this fact, the settlement and the fishing business did not die out after the California Gold Rush had ended. It was profitable enough to keep growing and start supplying fish and delicacies to the rest of the country. Many fishing ships come through this port, which serves as the base for the San Francisco fishing fleet. The Wharf has a chapel, dedicated solely to fishermen lost at sea. This fact suggests that many fishermen, making up a significant number, were lost to storms and accidents, when pondering the idea of a chapel dedicated to their memory. The fact that fishing operations continue up to this day suggests that the people lost at sea were not enough to discourage the fishing industry altogether, considering the total number of fishermen doing business in the area now and over the years.
I have talked to some of the merchants who were selling Dungeness Crab out on the streets, and have found out something interesting. Many of them are of Italian descent. They are descendants of the first Italian immigrants who settled here when Fisherman’s Wharf was built.
Aside from being a major fishing port, the Wharf is not a very interesting place, from a historical point of view. San Francisco is a relatively young city. The Wharf was necessary for the economic growth of the city, but, due to being a messy fishing port, it was not a very pleasant location. First attempts to improve the port’s image were made in the 1970s. Fisherman’s Wharf started to lose its original appearance, slowly becoming not only an important fishing port but also a tourist hub. Nowadays, it does not retain much of its historical appearance—in the year 2010, renovations were undertaken to make the place more attractive to the locals and tourists alike. It houses several attractions, a number of seafood restaurants, and many museums. One such museum is a ship as well as a historical landmark—the Liberty Ship SS Jeremiah O’Brien. It is a transport ship, and one of the few survivors of the D-Day operation. I took several photos of it during a tour.