San Francisco Maritime National Historical Park

The ground you are walking on holds a strange secret beneath the city streets. During the California Gold Rush, hundreds of ships arrived in San Francisco, only to be abandoned by their crews who rushed inland to chase fortune. These vessels were left to rot in the shallow waters of Yerba Buena Cove. As the city expanded, it simply filled in the cove with dirt and debris, burying the abandoned fleet directly beneath the financial district. Pieces of these ships are still occasionally uncovered during modern construction projects, and many artifacts recovered from these buried hulks are now held in the collections here at the park.