Pier 50

Pier 50 stands today as a massive, industrial finger pier, but its footprint is anchored to a vanished landmark known as Mission Rock. For decades, Mission Rock was a jagged, rocky outcropping sitting just offshore in the San Francisco Bay, separate from the mainland. In 1946, the city decided to finalize the transformation of the surrounding Mission Bay area by expanding Pier 50 to literally swallow the island, burying the old rock beneath the modern structure that you see today. Before it was engulfed, the island had served a long life as a grain terminal, though its final act before the pier expansion was a dramatic series of fires that consumed its aging creosote-soaked wharves.