#shipyardstories

Thousands wait in line to view the USS Constitution on Mare Island's north waterfront in 1933.

When “Old Ironsides” Came to Mare Island

There are moments when history doesn’t sit quietly in a museum, sometimes it sails into port.  In 1933, during the darkest years of the Great Depression, one of the most famous ships in American history entered the Mare Island Strait.  The legendary frigate USS Constitution, better known as “Old Ironsides.”

And the city of Vallejo erupted.

More than 15,000 visitors in a single day came to see her.  Restaurants ran out of food, and crowds stretched for blocks along the waterfront.

For a struggling nation, she wasn’t just a historic ship, she was proof the country had survived hard times before and would again even though country was in the depths of the Great Depression.

The Warship That Helped Create the U.S. Navy

Launched in 1797, Constitution was one of the original six frigates that formed the foundation of the United States Navy.  She fought in conflicts across the Atlantic and Mediterranean, from the Quasi-War with France to the Barbary Wars.  But it was during the War of 1812 that she became a legend.

In battle with the British frigate HMS Guerriere, British cannonballs were seen bouncing off Constitution’s thick oak hull.  A stunned sailor reportedly shouted: “Her sides are made of iron!”

And the nickname Old Ironsides was born.

Vallejo in Its Sunday Best

When Constitution visited Mare Island Naval Shipyard during her 1931–1934 National Good Will Cruise, the response was extraordinary.  Families arrived dressed in their best clothes.  People waited patiently for hours just to step aboard.

Look closely at photographs from that day:

Hats.

Coats.

This wasn’t tourism.  It was a pilgrimage.  Americans were coming to see a living symbol of their Navy.  We found a photograph of the crowds waiting to board her in my wife’s grandfather’s records.  He would have driven down to Vallejo at the height of the depression, a minimum 12-hour journey. 

The drive from Fort Bragg to Vallejo was an all‑day trek: a slow descent through the redwoods on the rough Fort Bragg–Willits Road, then south along the two‑lane Redwood Highway as it wound through Ukiah, Hopland, Cloverdale, Healdsburg, Santa Rosa, and Petaluma, each town forcing drivers to idle down its main street before continuing on. Beyond Ignacio, the pavement thinned into county roads leading toward Napa Junction, and the final miles into Vallejo were bumpy and slow, ending at the busy waterfront where Mare Island’s cranes signaled the journey’s end.

The Gun Deck That Won a War

The guns visitors saw on the gun deck were not replicas.  They were the very type that had shattered British warships during the War of 1812. From this deck HMS Guerriere was blasted into a burning wreck.

In 1933, those same timbers and cannons sat quietly tied to the Mare Island waterfront.  History wasn’t something in a textbook.  It was right there on the pier.

A Passing of the Torch

One photograph from the visit captures something remarkable.  As Constitution departed Mare Island, another warship sat tied up behind her: The heavy cruiser USS San Francisco (CA-38).  Unlike Constitution, she was made of steel and powered by modern engines, And she had been built right here at Mare Island.

Nine years later, during the Battle of Guadalcanal in 1942, San Francisco would endure 45 direct hits and lose 106 sailors in what Fleet Admiral Ernest J. King called: “The most furious sea battle fought in history.” In that photograph, the old Navy of sail and the modern Navy of steel share the same harbor.  A passing of the torch of freedom.

When a Queen Stepped Aboard an Enemy

In 1976, during America’s Bicentennial celebration, an extraordinary moment occurred.  England’s Queen Elizabeth II stepped aboard USS Constitution.

Think about that for a moment.

This was the very ship that had destroyed a British warship in battle nearly two centuries earlier.  Yet here stood the British monarch walking the deck as a welcomed guest.  The moment captured something powerful about history: Former enemies can become allies.

And the ships that fought each other can become shared symbols of heritage.

Why Constitution’s Visit Mattered

Warships usually live far away.  Out on the horizon.  But at Mare Island, history came close enough to touch.

This wasn’t just any port visit, so for a short time in 1933…

The most famous warship in American history lay quietly in the waters of the Mare Island Strait.

Dennis Kelly

Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II of England is welcomed about the USS Constitution by CDR. Tyrone G. Martin, Commanding Officer during America’s centennial celebration in 1976. It was from the decks of the Constitution that the British warship HMS Guerriere was reduced to a smoking hulk prior to sinking. It was during this battle that the Constitution earned her nickname “Old Ironsides” as Guerriere shot was observed bouncing off the sides of the Constitution.

The Constitution and Guerriere in battle during the War of 1812.

The Constitution arrives at Mare Island in 1933 for a month-long visit.

View of Constitution’s starboard battery run out in firing position.

The Great White Fleet lies at anchor in the Mare Island Strait in 1908

When the Great White Fleet Came to Mare Island

There are moments when a navy yard becomes more than a place of industry.  For a few extraordinary weeks in the spring of 1908, Mare Island Naval Shipyard became a stage for world history.

Across the country Americans followed the progress of President Theodore Roosevelt’s bold experiment, the sending of sixteen gleaming battleships on a voyage around the world. The fleet’s mission was simple in concept but enormous in implication: prove that the United States had become a global naval power capable of operating anywhere on earth.

The ships themselves made a spectacle that no one could ignore. Painted bright white for peacetime service, their towering masts, polished brass, and clouds of coal smoke gave them an almost theatrical presence. Newspapers quickly gave them a name that would become legendary,  the Great White Fleet.

America Steps Onto the World Stage

The fleet’s journey was rooted in events a decade earlier.  In 1898, during the Spanish–American War, Commodore George Dewey destroyed the Spanish fleet in Manila Bay. The victory was swift and decisive. When the war ended only four months later, the United States suddenly possessed overseas territories stretching from the Caribbean to the Pacific.

It was an astonishing transformation for a nation that had long preferred isolation from global power politics.

Behind that victory stood the modern steel Navy that had emerged in the late nineteenth century  and the shipyard that maintained it. Every ship in Dewey’s Manila Bay battle line had been serviced at Mare Island.

Roosevelt understood what that meant. America had arrived on the world stage, but its new role needed to be demonstrated. His solution was dramatic: send the Atlantic Fleet around the globe.

The voyage would be the largest peacetime naval deployment ever attempted.

The Fleet Arrives in San Francisco

By early May 1908 the Bay Area was electric with anticipation.  Crowds climbed the hills overlooking the Golden Gate. Ferries were packed with spectators. Newspaper presses thundered through the night printing special editions.

Then the fleet appeared.

Twenty-four warships, sixteen battleships and their escorts, steamed through the Golden Gate in magnificent formation. Their white hulls glowed in the California sunlight while black coal smoke streamed from their funnels.

Along the shoreline people cheered, waved flags, and watched in stunned silence as the most powerful naval armada ever assembled in peacetime entered San Francisco Bay.

Fourteen thousand sailors had arrived with them and for two months the Bay Area would feel their presence.

Mare Island: The Fleet’s Working Port

While San Francisco celebrated, the fleet also had serious business to conduct.  The ships needed coal, supplies, and maintenance before beginning the next leg of their voyage across the Pacific.  That work happened in the northern Bay Area at Mare Island Naval Shipyard.

There, along the coal sheds lining the Mare Island Strait, the battleships underwent one of the most exhausting operations of the age of steam: coaling.

Coal was shoveled by hand after tons of black dusty coal was hauled aboard by sailors in a process that covered everything in soot. It was dirty, brutal labor, but it kept the fleet moving.

The voyage revealed a critical weakness in American sea power. Steam battleships consumed staggering amounts of coal, and the United States lacked enough overseas coaling stations to support such operations in wartime.

The lesson would eventually lead to the Navy’s transition from coal to oil fuel a change that was pioneered at Mare Island and reshaped naval logistics in the decades to come.

But in 1908, coal still ruled the seas.

Sailors in the City

While the ships were serviced, the sailors poured into the Bay Area.

Fourteen thousand “bluejackets” explored San Francisco’s bustling waterfront and the notorious Barbary Coast. Dance halls, theaters, and saloons filled with young sailors enjoying liberty after months at sea.

Some even found time for life-changing moments.

One sailor from the torpedo destroyer USS Hopkins (DD‑6) managed to secure seventy-four hours of leave just enough time to marry his sweetheart before the fleet sailed again.  But the most remarkable romance connected with the ship involved a far more unusual arrival.

The Stowaway

When the destroyer USS Hopkins departed Southern California for San Francisco Bay, the crew carried an unexpected passenger.  A young woman named Olga Isile had been secretly smuggled aboard.

Disguised in sailor’s clothing by an infatuated crew member, she managed to remain hidden for part of the voyage before being discovered. Accounts differ about what happened next, some say she was thrown off the ship, others say severe seasickness forced her ashore.  Either way, she ended up in Santa Cruz.

Knowing the ship was headed to Mare Island, Olga made her way north to Vallejo and the busy Georgia Street Wharf. There she attempted to reconnect with the sailors of the torpedo flotilla, a reunion that quickly drew the attention of local police.

She was arrested for causing what newspapers delicately described as a “boisterous gathering” of sailors.  The story might have ended there.  Instead it took an even more surprising turn.

One sailor, not the one who had originally smuggled her aboard, promptly appeared at the police station and offered to marry her on his next payday.

Several weeks later, before the fleet sailed onward on its global journey, he did exactly that.  Whether Olga truly had been a stowaway or whether the story was exaggerated by curious sailors and eager reporters remained unclear. A naval inquiry eventually dismissed the claims as fabricated.

But the marriage was very real.  And so one of the most famous naval voyages in American history also produced one of its most unlikely love stories.

A Fleet That Circled the Earth

When the Great White Fleet finally departed the Bay Area, it continued westward across the Pacific, to Hawaii, New Zealand, Australia, Asia, the Middle East, and Europe.  By the time the ships returned to the United States in 1909, they had traveled more than 43,000 miles.  The voyage proved that the United States Navy could operate across the globe. It impressed foreign governments, reassured allies, and signaled that the United States had become a major world power.

Roosevelt’s “big stick” had made its point.

Mare Island’s Moment in History

For Mare Island, the visit represented something larger than a fleet stop.  The ships that anchored there were symbols of a nation transforming itself, from a continental republic into a global maritime power.

Workers who shoveled coal, repaired machinery, and serviced the ships played their own part in that transformation.

For a few weeks in 1908, the world’s most powerful fleet lay anchored in the Mare Island Strait.

Dennis Kelly

Commodore Dewey’s Battle Line made short work of the Spanish Fleet at the start of the Spanish-American War.

Following the successful conclusion of the Spanish-American War in 1898 newspapers thundered the new global reach of the new Imperial United States.

The Battleships of the Great White Fleet dramatically approach the entrance San Francisco Bay in column.

The Great White Fleet sails past San Francisco after entering the Bay.  Note the crowds of people on the hillside assembled to view the spectacle.