HARBOR OF SAN DIEGO 



JOHN S. MILLS 

 Secretary of the San Diego Chamber of Commerce 



SEA-FARING men, the large shippers and the larger ocean transporta- 

 tion companies throughout the world are reasonably familiar with the 

 great land-locked and perfectly safe harbor of San Diego. Navigators 

 from either the merchant marine or the navies of the world who have 

 visited this harbor have naught to say of it but praise. The bay is 

 thirteen miles long, perfectly land-locked, has about ten linear miles of 

 double frontage available at the present time for wharf purposes and has 

 sufficient depth of water to admit the largest ships on the Pacific. It is, 

 of course, not so large a sheet of water as San Francisco Bay, but has more 

 deep water which is practically, commercially and economically available 

 for docks than has San Francisco. Following the sinuosities of the shore- 

 line, it is thirty-seven miles around the bay. According to the plans of the 

 State Board of Harbor Commissioners, it is possible to construct here one 

 hundred and twenty-five linear miles of wharf frontage, having a depth of 

 thirty feet at low water. This depth may be increased to any desired. In 

 other words, if the wharves which it is possible to construct in this bay were 

 in the form of a quay, it would be one hundred and twenty-five miles long. 

 Supposing the average length of vessels to be three hundred and twenty-five 

 feet (which is, perhaps, above the average), it would be possible to dock 

 two thousand vessels at the same time. 



The depth of water in the channel at the present time varies from 

 eighty feet at the entrance to thirty feet ten miles up the bay. Opposite the 

 wharves at San Diego the depth is from forty to fifty feet. The available 

 anchorage for deep-draught vessels is about seven square miles, leaving 

 depth of water enough and space enough for thousands of shallow-draught 

 vessels. The depth of water in the channel over the bar is twenty-eight feet 

 at low tide, and the depth of water over the bar may be increased by dredg- 

 ing to thirty-five or even forty feet at low water. 



This haven is necessarily destined to become the great route for Ori- 

 ental, West Coast American, Hawaiian, and Australian trade. It is nearer 

 to Galveston, New Orleans, St. Louis, Kansas City, Chicago, and New York 

 than any other Pacific Coast American port. This distance may be greatly 

 lessened by the building of new and more direct railroad routes running 

 from this bay either to Kansas City or St. Louis. Some of these lines are 

 already in process of construction. Roughly speaking, the saving to New 

 York by a new direct line would be about 400 miles, to St. Louis 500 miles, 

 to Kansas City 300 miles, over any existing route from a Pacific Coast 

 harbor capable of accommodating deep-sea vessels to either of those points. 

 A direct line from San Diego to a connection with the Southern Pacific 

 would save more than five hundred miles to Galveston and New Orleans. 

 These railroads will certainly be built. It will be then, after such railroad 

 building, that the enormous advantages this harbor has by reason of the 

 great eastward trend of the Pacific Coast will be felt and appreciated. The 

 San Diego and Arizona Railway, giving us direct Eastern connection, is 

 now being built. 



This harbor is of course the nearest possible naval base to the Panama 

 Canal on the Pacific Coast, either for supplies or for refuge. There should 

 be located here a great naval station. Already the War Department realizes 

 this and has strongly fortified the harbor along the general appropriation 

 which allows that department to expend such appropriation in its discretion, 

 and such fortifications are to be further strengthened. An appropriation 

 has also been made for a coaling station, and the preliminary work for this 

 is now under way. 



