1.
Reporting mark
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A reporting mark is an alphabetic code of one to four letters used to identify owners or lessees of rolling stock and other equipment used on certain railroad networks. In North America the mark, which consists of an code of one to four letters, is stenciled on each piece of equipment. The Association of American Railroads assigns marks to all carriers, under authority granted by the U. S, surface Transportation Board, Transport Canada, and Mexican Government. Under current practice, the first letter must match the initial letter of the railroad name, as it also acts as a Standard Carrier Alpha Code, the reporting mark cannot conflict with codes in use by other nonrail carriers. In another example, the mark for state-funded Amtrak services in California is CDTX because the state transportation agency owns the equipment used in these services. This is why the reporting mark for CSX Transportation, which is a railroad, is CSXT instead of CSX. This often resulted in five-letter reporting marks, an option not otherwise allowed by the AAR, the standard ISO6346 covers identifiers for intermodal containers. When the owner of a mark is taken over by another company. For example, when the Union Pacific Railroad acquired the Chicago and North Western Railway in the 1990s, some companies own several marks that are used to identify different classes of cars, such as boxcars or gondolas. If the acquiring company discontinues the name or mark of the acquired company, occasionally, long-disused marks are suddenly revived by the companies which now own them. For example, in recent years, the Union Pacific Railroad has begun to use the mark CMO on newly built covered hoppers, gondolas, CMO originally belonged to a predecessor of the CNW, which passed it on to them, from which the UP inherited it. Some of these still retain their temporary NYC marks. Because of its size, this list has been split into subpages based on the first letter of the reporting mark, railinc, a subsidiary of the AAR, maintains the active reporting marks for the North American rail industry. Railinc offers a free online look-up of reporting marks and other industry reference files through the Railincs Freight Rail 411 website, a railway vehicle must be registered in a national vehicle register using a 12-digit number derived from the old UIC system of vehicle numbering. The number contains the country in the third and fourth digit. The VKM must not contain special signs or digits, the VKM is preceded by the code for the country, where the vehicle is registered and a hyphen. Some examples, When a vehicle is sold it does not normally be transferred to another register, the Czech railways bought large numbers of coaches from ÖBB. The number remained the same but the VKM changed from A-ÖBB to A-ČD, the UIC introduced a uniform numbering system for their members based on a 12-digit number, largely known as UIC number
2.
Marin County, California
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Marin County /məˈrɪn/ is a county located in the San Francisco Bay Area of the U. S. state of California. As of the 2010 census, the population was 252,409 and its county seat is San Rafael. Marin County is included in the San Francisco-Oakland-Hayward, CA Metropolitan Statistical Area across the Golden Gate Bridge from San Francisco, Marin County is one of the wealthiest localities in the United States, known for its affluence. In May 2009, Marin County had the fifth highest income per capita in the United States at about $91,480, the county is governed by the Marin County Board of Supervisors. The county is well known for its natural beauty and liberal politics. San Quentin Prison is located in the county, as is George Lucas Skywalker Ranch, autodesk, the publisher of AutoCAD, is also located there, as well as numerous other high-tech companies. The Marin County Civic Center was designed by Frank Lloyd Wright and draws thousands of visitors a year to guided tours of its arch, in 1994, a new county jail facility was embedded into the hillside nearby. Marin Countys natural sites include the Muir Woods redwood forest, the Marin Headlands, Stinson Beach, the Point Reyes National Seashore, the United States oldest cross country running event, the Dipsea Race, takes place annually in Marin County, attracting thousands of athletes. Mountain biking was invented on the slopes of Mount Tamalpais in Marin, According to General Mariano Vallejo, who headed an 1850 committee to name Californias counties, the county was named for Marin, great chief of the tribe Licatiut. Marin had been named Huicmuse until he was baptized as Marino at about age 20, Marin / Marino was born into the Huimen people, a Coast Miwok tribe of Native Americans who inhabited the San Rafael area. Vallejo believed that Chief Marin had waged several fierce battles against the Spanish, starting in 1817, he served as an alcalde at the San Rafael Mission, where he lived from 1817 off and on until his death. The Coast Miwok Indians were hunters and gatherers whose ancestors had occupied the area for thousands of years, about 600 village sites have been identified in the county. The Coast Miwok numbered in the thousands, today, there are few left and even fewer with any knowledge of their Coast Miwok lineage. Efforts are being made so that they are not forgotten, francis Drake and the crew of the Golden Hind was thought to have landed on the Marin coast in 1579 claiming the land as Nova Albion. A bronze plaque inscribed with Drakes claim to the new lands and this so-called Drakes Plate of Brass was revealed as a hoax in 2003. In 1595, Sebastian Cermeno lost his ship, the San Agustin, the Spanish explorer Vizcaíno landed about twenty years after Drake in what is now called Drakes Bay. According to the U. S. Census Bureau, the county has an area of 828 square miles. It is the fourth-smallest county in California by land area
3.
Sonoma County, California
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Sonoma County is a county in the U. S. state of California. As of the 2010 United States Census, its population was 483,878 and its county seat and largest city is Santa Rosa. It is located to the north of Marin County and the south of Mendocino County and it is west of Napa County and Lake County. Sonoma County comprises the Santa Rosa, CA Metropolitan Statistical Area and it is the northwestern county in the nine-county San Francisco Bay Area region. Sonoma is the county and largest producer of California’s Wine Country region, which also includes Napa, Mendocino. It possesses thirteen approved American Viticultural Areas and over 250 wineries, in 2002, Sonoma County ranked as the 32nd county in the United States in agricultural production. More than 7.4 million tourists each year, spending more than $1 billion in 2006. Sonoma County is the home of Sonoma State University and Santa Rosa Junior College, Sonoma County is home to several Native American tribes. By the 1830s, European settlement had set a new direction that would prove to radically alter the course of land use, Sonoma County has rich agricultural land, albeit largely divided between two nearly monocultural uses as of 2007, grapes and pasturage. The voters have twice approved open space initiatives that have provided funding for public acquisition of natural areas, preserving forested areas, coastal habitat, and other open space. The Pomo, Coast Miwok and Wappo peoples were the earliest human settlers of Sonoma County, spaniards, Russians, and other Europeans claimed and settled in the county from the late 16th to mid-19th century, seeking timber, fur, and farmland. The Russians were the first newcomers to establish a permanent foothold in Sonoma County and this settlement and its outlying Russian settlements came to include a population of several hundred Russian and Aleut settlers and a stockaded fort with artillery. However, the Russians abandoned it in 1841 and sold the fort to John Sutter, settler and Mexican land grantee of Sacramento. The Mission San Francisco Solano, founded in 1823 as the last and northernmost of 21 California missions, is in the present City of Sonoma, El Presidio de Sonoma, or Sonoma Barracks, was established in 1836 by Comandante General Mariano Guadalupe Vallejo. The City of Sonoma was the site of the Bear Flag Revolt in 1846, Sonoma was one of the original counties formed when California became a state in 1850, with its county seat originally the town of Sonoma. However, by the early 1850s, the town of Sonoma had declined in importance in terms of commerce and population, its county buildings were crumbling, and it was relatively remote. As a result, elements in the newer, rapidly growing towns of Petaluma, Santa Rosa, the dispute ultimately was between the bigger, richer commercial town of Petaluma and the more centrally located, growing agricultural center of Santa Rosa. Allegedly, several Santa Rosans, not caring to wait, decided to take action and, one night, rode down the Sonoma Valley to Sonoma, took the county seals and records, some of the countys land was annexed from Mendocino County between 1850 and 1860
4.
California
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California is the most populous state in the United States and the third most extensive by area. Located on the western coast of the U. S, California is bordered by the other U. S. states of Oregon, Nevada, and Arizona and shares an international border with the Mexican state of Baja California. Los Angeles is Californias most populous city, and the second largest after New York City. The Los Angeles Area and the San Francisco Bay Area are the nations second- and fifth-most populous urban regions, California also has the nations most populous county, Los Angeles County, and its largest county by area, San Bernardino County. The Central Valley, an agricultural area, dominates the states center. What is now California was first settled by various Native American tribes before being explored by a number of European expeditions during the 16th and 17th centuries, the Spanish Empire then claimed it as part of Alta California in their New Spain colony. The area became a part of Mexico in 1821 following its war for independence. The western portion of Alta California then was organized as the State of California, the California Gold Rush starting in 1848 led to dramatic social and demographic changes, with large-scale emigration from the east and abroad with an accompanying economic boom. If it were a country, California would be the 6th largest economy in the world, fifty-eight percent of the states economy is centered on finance, government, real estate services, technology, and professional, scientific and technical business services. Although it accounts for only 1.5 percent of the states economy, the story of Calafia is recorded in a 1510 work The Adventures of Esplandián, written as a sequel to Amadis de Gaula by Spanish adventure writer Garci Rodríguez de Montalvo. The kingdom of Queen Calafia, according to Montalvo, was said to be a land inhabited by griffins and other strange beasts. This conventional wisdom that California was an island, with maps drawn to reflect this belief, shortened forms of the states name include CA, Cal. Calif. and US-CA. Settled by successive waves of arrivals during the last 10,000 years, various estimates of the native population range from 100,000 to 300,000. The Indigenous peoples of California included more than 70 distinct groups of Native Americans, ranging from large, settled populations living on the coast to groups in the interior. California groups also were diverse in their organization with bands, tribes, villages. Trade, intermarriage and military alliances fostered many social and economic relationships among the diverse groups, the first European effort to explore the coast as far north as the Russian River was a Spanish sailing expedition, led by Portuguese captain Juan Rodríguez Cabrillo, in 1542. Some 37 years later English explorer Francis Drake also explored and claimed a portion of the California coast in 1579. Spanish traders made unintended visits with the Manila galleons on their trips from the Philippines beginning in 1565
5.
Track gauge
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In rail transport, track gauge is the spacing of the rails on a railway track and is measured between the inner faces of the load-bearing rails. All vehicles on a network must have running gear that is compatible with the track gauge, as the dominant parameter determining interoperability, it is still frequently used as a descriptor of a route or network. There is a distinction between the gauge and actual gauge at some locality, due to divergence of track components from the nominal. Railway engineers use a device, like a caliper, to measure the actual gauge, the nominal track gauge is the distance between the inner faces of the rails. In current practice, it is specified at a distance below the rail head as the inner faces of the rail head are not necessarily vertical. In some cases in the earliest days of railways, the company saw itself as an infrastructure provider only. Colloquially the wagons might be referred to as four-foot gauge wagons, say and this nominal value does not equate to the flange spacing, as some freedom is allowed for. An infrastructure manager might specify new or replacement track components at a variation from the nominal gauge for pragmatic reasons. Track is defined in old Imperial units or in universally accepted metric units or SI units, Imperial units were established in United Kingdom by The Weights and Measures Act of 1824. In addition, there are constraints, such as the load-carrying capacity of axles. Narrow gauge railways usually cost less to build because they are lighter in construction, using smaller cars and locomotives, as well as smaller bridges, smaller tunnels. Narrow gauge is often used in mountainous terrain, where the savings in civil engineering work can be substantial. Broader gauge railways are generally expensive to build and require wider curves. There is no single perfect gauge, because different environments and economic considerations come into play, a narrow gauge is superior if ones main considerations are economy and tight curvature. For direct, unimpeded routes with high traffic, a broad gauge may be preferable, the Standard, Russian, and 46 gauges are designed to strike a reasonable balance between these factors. In addition to the general trade-off, another important factor is standardization, once a standard has been chosen, and equipment, infrastructure, and training calibrated to that standard, conversion becomes difficult and expensive. This also makes it easier to adopt an existing standard than to invent a new one and this is true of many technologies, including railroad gauges. The reduced cost, greater efficiency, and greater economic opportunity offered by the use of a common standard explains why a number of gauges predominate worldwide
6.
Sausalito, California
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Sausalito is a San Francisco Bay Area city in Marin County, California. Sausalito is 8 miles south-southeast of San Rafael, at an elevation of 13 feet, the population was 7,061 as of the 2010 census. The community is situated near the end of the Golden Gate Bridge, and prior to the building of that bridge served as a terminus for rail, car. It is adjacent to, and largely bounded by, the spaces of the Golden Gate National Recreation Area. It is sometimes claimed that Sausalito was named for the district in Valparaíso, Murrieta was the leader of bandits who settled at the northern end of the future Golden Gate bridge after being banned from San Francisco in the bandit wars. However, this theory cannot be true because Murrieta was from Mexico, not Chile, the Rancho Saucelito had already been granted to William Richardson in 1838. Located at 37°51′33″N 122°29′07″W, Sausalito encompasses both steep, wooded hillside and shoreline tidal flats, according to the United States Census Bureau, the city has a total area of 2.2 square miles. Notably, only 1.8 square miles of it is land, a full 21. 54% of the city is under water, and has been so since its founding in 1868. Prominent geographic features associated with Sausalito include Richardson Bay and Pine Point, when Sausalito was formally platted, it was anticipated that future development might extend the shoreline with landfill, as had been the practice in neighboring San Francisco. As a result, entire streets, demarcated and given names like Pescadero, Eureka and Teutonia, the legal, if not actual, presence of these streets has proved a contentious factor in public policy, because some houseboats float directly above them. The California State Lands Commission is reportedly pursuing a compromise which would not the houseboats. Sausalito has a Mediterranean climate with far lower temperatures than expected because of its adjacency to San Francisco Bay, Sausalito was once the site of a Coast Miwok settlement known as Liwanelowa. The branch of the Coast Miwok living in this area were known as the Huimen, early explorers of the area described them as friendly and hospitable. Such placidity was likely a factor to their complete displacement. As historian Jack Tracy has observed, Their dwellings on the site of Sausalito were explored and mapped in 1907, nearly a century, by that time, nothing was left of the culture of those who had first enjoyed the natural treasures of the bay. The life of the Coastal Miwoks had been reduced to archaeological remnants, the first European known to visit the present-day location of Sausalito was Don José de Cañizares, on August 5,1775. Cañizares was head of a party dispatched by longboat from the ship San Carlos. The crew of the San Carlos came ashore soon after, reporting friendly natives and teeming populations of deer, elk, bear, sea lions, seals and otters
7.
Narrow-gauge railway
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A narrow-gauge railway is a railway with a track gauge narrower than the 1,435 mm of standard gauge railways. Most existing narrow-gauge railways are between 600 mm and 1,067 mm, narrow-gauge railways also have specialized use in mines and other environments where a very small structure gauge makes a very small loading gauge necessary. Narrow-gauge railways also have general applications. Many narrow-gauge street tramways are used, particularly in Europe, where 1,000 mm metre gauge tramways are common, the earliest recorded railway is shown in the De re metallica of 1556, which shows a mine in Bohemia with a railway of about 2 ft gauge. During the 16th century, railways were mainly restricted to hand-pushed narrow-gauge lines in mines throughout Europe, during the 17th century, mine railways were extended to provide transportation above ground. These lines were industrial, connecting mines with nearby transportation points and these railways were usually built to the same narrow gauge as the mine railways from which they developed. The worlds first steam locomotive on rails, built in 1802 by Richard Trevithick for the Coalbrookdale Company, during the 1820s and 1830s, a number of industrial narrow-gauge railways in the United Kingdom used steam locomotives. In 1842, the first narrow-gauge steam locomotive outside the UK was built for the 1,100 mm gauge Antwerp-Ghent Railway in Belgium, historically, many narrow-gauge railways were built as part of specific industrial enterprises and were primarily industrial railways rather than general carriers. Some common uses for these industrial narrow-gauge railways were mining, logging, construction, tunnelling, quarrying, extensive narrow-gauge networks were constructed in many parts of the world for these purposes. For example, mountain logging operations in the 19th century often used narrow-gauge railways to transport logs from mill sites to market, significant sugarcane railways still operate in Cuba, Fiji, Java, the Philippines, and Queensland. Narrow-gauge railway equipment remains in use for the construction of tunnels. Extensive narrow-gauge railway systems served the front-line trenches of both sides in World War I and they were a short-lived military application, and after the end of the war, the surplus equipment from these created a small boom in narrow gauge railway building in Europe. Narrow-gauge railways usually cost less to build because they are lighter in construction, using smaller cars and locomotives, as well as smaller bridges, smaller tunnels. Narrow gauge is often used in mountainous terrain, where the savings in civil engineering work can be substantial. It is also used in populated areas where the potential demand is too low for broader gauge railways to be economically viable. This is the case in some of Australia and most of Southern Africa, the use of such railways has almost vanished due to the capabilities of modern trucks. In many countries, narrow gauge railways were built as feeder or branch lines to feed traffic to more important standard gauge lines, the choice was often not between a narrow-gauge railway and a standard gauge one, but between a narrow-gauge railway and none at all. Some bulk commodities, such as coal, ore, and gravel, can be transshipped, but this still incurs time penalties
8.
Railway electrification system
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A railway electrification system supplies electric power to railway trains and trams without an on-board prime mover or local fuel supply. Electrification has many advantages but requires significant capital expenditure, selection of an electrification system is based on economics of energy supply, maintenance, and capital cost compared to the revenue obtained for freight and passenger traffic. Different systems are used for urban and intercity areas, some electric locomotives can switch to different supply voltages to allow flexibility in operation, Electric railways use electric locomotives to haul passengers or freight in separate cars or electric multiple units, passenger cars with their own motors. Electricity is typically generated in large and relatively efficient generating stations, transmitted to the railway network, some electric railways have their own dedicated generating stations and transmission lines but most purchase power from an electric utility. The railway usually provides its own lines, switches and transformers. Power is supplied to moving trains with a continuous conductor running along the track usually takes one of two forms. The first is a line or catenary wire suspended from poles or towers along the track or from structure or tunnel ceilings. Locomotives or multiple units pick up power from the wire with pantographs on their roofs that press a conductive strip against it with a spring or air pressure. Examples are described later in this article, the second is a third rail mounted at track level and contacted by a sliding pickup shoe. Both overhead wire and third-rail systems usually use the rails as the return conductor. In comparison to the alternative, the diesel engine, electric railways offer substantially better energy efficiency, lower emissions. Electric locomotives are usually quieter, more powerful, and more responsive and they have no local emissions, an important advantage in tunnels and urban areas. Different regions may use different supply voltages and frequencies, complicating through service, the limited clearances available under catenaries may preclude efficient double-stack container service. Possible lethal electric current due to risk of contact with high-voltage contact wires, overhead wires are safer than third rails, but they are often considered unsightly. These are independent of the system used, so that. The permissible range of voltages allowed for the voltages is as stated in standards BS EN50163. These take into account the number of trains drawing current and their distance from the substation, railways must operate at variable speeds. Until the mid 1980s this was only practical with the brush-type DC motor, since such conversion was not well developed in the late 19th century and early 20th century, most early electrified railways used DC and many still do, particularly rapid transit and trams
9.
Pier
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A pier is a raised structure in a body of water, typically supported by well-spaced piles or pillars. Bridges, buildings, and walkways may all be supported by piers, Piers can range in size and complexity from a simple lightweight wooden structure to major structures extended over 1600 metres. In American English, pier may be synonymous with dock, thus in North America and Australia, where many ports were, until recently, built on the multiple pier model, the term tends to imply a current or former cargo-handling facility. In Europe in contrast, where more often use basins and river-side quays than piers. However, the earliest piers pre-date the Victorian age, Piers can be categorized into different groupings according to the principal purpose. However, there is overlap between these categories. Many piers are floating piers, to ensure that the piers raise and this prevents a situation where lines become overly taut or loose by rising or lowering tides. An overly taut or loose tie-line can damage boats by pulling out of the water or allowing them so much leeway that they bang forcefully against the sides of the pier. Working piers were built for the handling of passengers and cargo onto, working piers themselves fall into two different groups. Longer individual piers are found at ports with large tidal ranges. Such piers provided an alternative to impounded docks where cargo volumes were low, or where specialist bulk cargo was handled. The other form of working pier, often called the pier, was built at ports with smaller tidal ranges. Here the principal advantage was to give a greater available quay length for ships to berth against compared to a linear littoral quayside, typically each pier would carry a single transit shed the length of the pier, with ships berthing bow or stern in to the shore. Some major ports consisted of numbers of such piers lining the foreshore, classic examples being the Hudson River frontage of New York. One example, is in use in Progreso, Yucatán, where a pier extends more than 4 miles into the Gulf of Mexico, making it the longest pier in the world. The Progreso Pier supplies much of the peninsula with transportation for the fishing, many other working piers have been demolished, or remain derelict, but some have been recycled as pleasure piers. The best known example of this is Pier 39 in San Francisco, at Southport and the Tweed River on the Gold Coast in Australia, there are piers that support equipment for a sand bypassing system that maintains the health of sandy beaches and navigation channels. Pleasure piers were first built in Britain during the early 19th century, the earliest structures were Ryde Pier, built in 1813/4, Trinity Chain Pier near Leith, built in 1821, and Brighton Chain Pier, built in 1823
10.
Ferries of San Francisco Bay
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San Francisco Bay in California has been served by ferries of all types for over 150 years. John Reed established a ferry service in 1826. One of the earliest ferry routes ran between San Francisco and Oakland on what was called the creek route. The name derived from the Oakland landing site located at the foot of Broadway where Jack London Square is today, fronting on what is called the Oakland Estuary. The estuary, which in the 1800s included what is todays Lake Merritt, was the creek, in 1851, Captain Thomas Gray, grandfather of the famous dancer Isadora Duncan, began the first regular ferry service to San Francisco from the East Bay. Service started with the stern-wheel Sacramento River packet General Sutter and the iron steam ferry Kangaroo. Service was augmented in 1852 by Caleb Cope, the small ferry Hector powered by a sawmill engine. Boston burned that year and was replaced first by William Browns San Joaquin River packet Erastus Corning, in 1853, Minturn formed the Contra Costa Steam Navigation Company and had the ferry Clinton built expressly for trans-bay service. A second ferry, Contra Costa began operating over the route in 1857, the earliest railroad ferries ran from Oakland Point and from Alameda Terminal when Alameda was still a peninsula. The ferry pier at Oakland Point was greatly enlarged to form the Oakland Long Wharf and these railroad ferries mostly carried passengers, not trains, although there was some ferrying of freight cars to San Francisco. This railroad ferry actually carried whole trains and these ferries became part of the Southern Pacific Railroad when it assumed many of the facilities of its affiliate, the Central Pacific. These large train ferries were idled when a bridge was completed over the Carquinez Strait in 1930. Ferries began serving north bay rail connections with the Petaluma and Haystack Railroad in 1864, San Francisco and North Pacific Railroad and Petaluma and Santa Rosa Railroad ferries connected Petaluma River landing locations with San Francisco. North Pacific Coast Railroad ferries connected Sausalito with San Francisco, some of these ferries operated on Northwestern Pacific Railroad schedules from 1907 to 1938. The Napa Valley Railroad established service in 1865 and connected with ferry service in Vallejo. Monticello Steamship Company began operating ferries between Vallejo and San Francisco in 1895, and began coordinating with train schedules in 1905, Golden Gate Ferry Company gained control of Monticello in 1927 and, after merging with Southern Pacific, discontinued ferry service to Vallejo in 1937. Santa Fe and Western Pacific both ran passenger ferries connecting their east bay terminals to San Francisco, but both discontinued ferry service in 1933, service to Sausalito was suspended in 1938 by order of the State Railroad Commission, and the last ferry to Alameda ran in 1939. The last Southern Pacific ferry ran between Oakland and San Francisco on 29 July 1958, Southern Pacific ferries Melrose and Thoroughfare were designated to carry automobiles to and from San Francisco on the original Creek Route in 1911
11.
San Francisco
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San Francisco, officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the cultural, commercial, and financial center of Northern California. It is the birthplace of the United Nations, the California Gold Rush of 1849 brought rapid growth, making it the largest city on the West Coast at the time. San Francisco became a consolidated city-county in 1856, after three-quarters of the city was destroyed by the 1906 earthquake and fire, San Francisco was quickly rebuilt, hosting the Panama-Pacific International Exposition nine years later. In World War II, San Francisco was a port of embarkation for service members shipping out to the Pacific Theater. Politically, the city votes strongly along liberal Democratic Party lines, San Francisco is also the headquarters of five major banking institutions and various other companies such as Levi Strauss & Co. Dolby, Airbnb, Weebly, Pacific Gas and Electric Company, Yelp, Pinterest, Twitter, Uber, Lyft, Mozilla, Wikimedia Foundation, as of 2016, San Francisco is ranked high on world liveability rankings. The earliest archaeological evidence of habitation of the territory of the city of San Francisco dates to 3000 BC. Upon independence from Spain in 1821, the became part of Mexico. Under Mexican rule, the system gradually ended, and its lands became privatized. In 1835, Englishman William Richardson erected the first independent homestead, together with Alcalde Francisco de Haro, he laid out a street plan for the expanded settlement, and the town, named Yerba Buena, began to attract American settlers. Commodore John D. Sloat claimed California for the United States on July 7,1846, during the Mexican–American War, montgomery arrived to claim Yerba Buena two days later. Yerba Buena was renamed San Francisco on January 30 of the next year, despite its attractive location as a port and naval base, San Francisco was still a small settlement with inhospitable geography. The California Gold Rush brought a flood of treasure seekers, with their sourdough bread in tow, prospectors accumulated in San Francisco over rival Benicia, raising the population from 1,000 in 1848 to 25,000 by December 1849. The promise of fabulous riches was so strong that crews on arriving vessels deserted and rushed off to the gold fields, leaving behind a forest of masts in San Francisco harbor. Some of these approximately 500 abandoned ships were used at times as storeships, saloons and hotels, many were left to rot, by 1851 the harbor was extended out into the bay by wharves while buildings were erected on piles among the ships. By 1870 Yerba Buena Cove had been filled to create new land, buried ships are occasionally exposed when foundations are dug for new buildings. California was quickly granted statehood in 1850 and the U. S. military built Fort Point at the Golden Gate, silver discoveries, including the Comstock Lode in Nevada in 1859, further drove rapid population growth. With hordes of fortune seekers streaming through the city, lawlessness was common, and the Barbary Coast section of town gained notoriety as a haven for criminals, prostitution, entrepreneurs sought to capitalize on the wealth generated by the Gold Rush
