Quote:
Originally posted by Atticus Grinch
The port was Alviso, which has always been a little ways inside the mouth of the Guadalupe River. (I had to look this up, Paigow --- will your Pub Quiz team have WiFi access?) It died more from the introduction of daily train service to SF, which killed the overnight steamboat service from Alviso, than from the silting up of the river mouth.
I have never heard of gold mining in San Jose. It seems unlikely, as there aren't many hills in the vicinity, and it would take a lot of water volume to get the silt all the way to the Bay.
I discovered on Google Earth that Alviso is quite near the Bay Area's only real ghost town, Drawbridge, California. It's on land owned by Cargill Salt, so you can't visit. The entire bayshore to the south is now a protected national wildfowl refuge, so Alviso was doomed, 49ers or no.
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I saw a KQED special on Drawbridge. They interviewed a lot of the former residents. It was very interesting. They should terminate the salt ponds.
When driving across the Dumbarton it doesn't seem like a boat could make it to Alviso. If they can, I think they should start the ferry service again. How cool would it be to take a ferry from San Jose to San Francisco.
As far as dirt filling the bay, the way I heard it was the silt came all the way from gold country and it filled the entire bay. The south end was the shallowist so it was hurt the worst. I was also told that treasure island was dredged from this "gold" silt so that it is why it is called "treasure". That is all suspect hearsay.
