F I R S TP R E V859NEXTLAST

Fishing San Francisco from a Distance
As their work on the railroads was wrapping up in the 1870s and with no place else to go, the Chinese that had been brought in to lay the tracks began to drift back to San Francisco's Chinatown looking for work. Instead they found virulent anti-Chinese sentiment fueled by populist political leader Dennis Kearney. The persecution was so rampant, and work so hard to find, that 3,000 Chinese fled the city and began to build fishing camps in isolated parts of Marin County, just across the Bay.

By 1896 there were 26 fishing camps in the area. The Chinese fishermen employed tide-powered, set net and gill net techniques brought from China. Most successful were the Chinese shrimp fisherman whose catches would sell for 8 to 14 cents a pound. At that time it was the custom to provide San Francisco diners with free shrimp to munch on while they scanned the menu (think tortilla chips and salsa today).

However the selling of the seafood required the hiring of non-Chinese salesmen so the bulk of the shrimp catch was pounded, dried, and shipped to China in bulk. Even the chitinous shells were crushed into fertilizer and sent back home.

By the early 1910s prejudice, politics, and more up-to-date fishing techniques led to the demise of the Chinese fishing camps. Soon the Chinese junks, with their protective eyes painted on the bows and their captains wearing red flannel tied around their heads, disappeared into Bay history.
[ MAP K-10 ]