Apollo (storeship)

You are walking directly over the remains of the Apollo, a vessel that served as a central fixture of San Francisco during the Gold Rush. When this ship arrived in the bay in September 1849, her crew immediately abandoned her to join the hunt for gold. Instead of letting the vessel rot, opportunistic merchants beached her on the mudflats and transformed her into a functional building. They pulled her masts and removed her ballast, then constructed a two story wooden barn over her decks to house offices and warehouses. The ship even featured the Apollo Saloon at her stern, a popular establishment where people gathered for coffee and doughnuts. While the original ship was destroyed by a fire in 1851, her charred remains were covered by sand and landfill as the city expanded outward. Today, she lies buried beneath the intersection of Sacramento and Battery Streets, a permanent piece of the city's foundation.