Pier 26 (San Francisco, California)

Coordinates: 37°47′19.47″N 122°23′15.74″W / 37.7887417°N 122.3877056°W / 37.7887417; -122.3877056

The existing historic Pier 26 in San Francisco is located on the Embarcadero with its entrance directly under the San Francisco–Oakland Bay Bridge, several blocks southeast of the Ferry Building. The pier is a single story gable timber structure that rests partially on concrete retainage but mostly on pier foundations on the bay. Its surface area measures approximately 100,000 square feet (9,300 m²), currently used for parking and storage. Its front facade along the Embarcadero is of historic significance.

History

By the middle of the 19th century, San Francisco's waterfront was little more than a crumbling mass of abandoned ships and piers. Many of the people who traveled to California to find fame and fortune in the gold rush simply abandoned their boats on the waterfront. In 1863, The Board of State Harbor Commissioners commissioned a sea wall to extend around the San Francisco's bay shore, which exists today as the Embarcadero.