Map Showing the Salt Marsh, Tide, and Submerged Lands of the State of California in the Bays of San Francisco and San Pablo — 1874

Cartographer: U.S. Commissioners: Rear Admiral John Rodgers, Major George H. Mendell, and Prof. George Davidson State Harbor Commissioners: Samuel Soule, E. D. Mathewson, and D. C. McRuer

Year: 1874

Issued jointly by federal and state harbor boards, this large hydrographic chart classifies every acre of shoreline around San Francisco and San Pablo Bays. Four tints separate upland, salt-marsh, tide-covered, and fully submerged state-owned tracts targeted for sale or reclamation, while gridded plats mark private waterfront subdivisions already surveyed. Thousands of depth soundings, navigation channels, and ferry routes scatter across the pale bay surface, and fine hachures outline the coastal bluffs, creek mouths, and sloughs ringing the estuary. Proposed bulkheads and seawalls appear as dashed red lines, revealing early plans to convert mudflats into wharves and rail yards. An acreage table at lower right tallies more than 82,000 acres of tide and submerged lands then under state jurisdiction. The map provides a rare, color-coded snapshot of Bay Area shorelines before massive 20th-century fill reshaped them.