Moore Dry Dock Company facts for kids

USS Fir (WAGL 212)

USS Greenlet leaving Pearl Harbor, Hawaii in 1963

USS Sirius (AF-60)

Moore Dry Dock Company in 1943

Seaplane Wrecking Derrick - YSD

Moore Dry Dock Company was a ship repair and shipbuilding company in Oakland, California. In 1905, Robert S. Moore, his brother Joseph A. Moore, and John Thomas Scott purchased the National Iron Works located in the Hunter's Point section of San Francisco, and founded a new company, the Moore & Scott Iron Works Moore had previously been vice president of the Risdon Iron Works of San Francisco. Scott was nephew to Henry T. and Irving M. Scott, owners of the nearby Union Iron Works, where John had risen from apprentice to superintendent. Their new business was soon destroyed by fire resulting from the San Francisco earthquake. They quickly recovered and were back in business before the end of 1906 by purchasing Boole & Sons shipyard on Union Street in Oakland.

In 1909, Moore and Scott decided to move across the Bay, and so purchased the W.A. Boole and Son Shipyard, located in Oakland at the foot of Adeline Street along the Oakland Estuary.

In 1917, Moore bought out Scott and changed the business name to Moore Shipbuilding Company. The company built a number of United States Shipping Board cargo ships used in World War 1. In 1922, the company name was changed to Moore Dry Dock Company, operating primarily as a repair yard. Its shipbuilding capabilities were expanded in the World War II era, providing over 100 ships for the U.S. Navy and merchant marine. Moore ranked 82nd among United States corporations in the value of World War II military production contracts. Shipbuilding ceased at war's end, but repair operations continued. Moore Dry Dock Company finally closed in 1961.

The yard was notable for its employment of several thousand African Americans, in both skilled and unskilled positions, at a time when they confronted major job discrimination.

At the Rosie the Riveter/World War II Home Front National Historical Park an inscription honoring the wartime contributions made by the Bay Area Shipyards during World War II states that "Moore Dry Dock handled the difficult jobs of production, repair and conversion that slowed overall output in other yards."

In 1950, the Moore facility was the target of a union picket when sailors were having a dispute with a ship owner whose ship was in Moore's dry dock at the time. The court battle which ensued eventually led to the Moore Dry Dock Standards for Primary Picketing at a Secondary Site (Sailors' Union of the Pacific (Moore Dry Dock Co.), 92 NLRB 547, 27 LRRM 1108 (1950)).

Moore Dry Dock Company ceased operations in 1961. Its site at the foot of Adeline Street on the Oakland Estuary is now occupied by Schnitzer Steel Industries, a large scrap metal recycling concern, based in Portland, Oregon.

World War 2

For the US war effort, Moore Dry Dock Company built:

• Type C3-class cargo ships.
• 82 of 328 type C2 United States Maritime Commission cargo designs C2-S-A1 and C2-S-B1. Some were converted to AP Troopships.
• Ashland-class dock landing ships, Dock landing ships a type of Amphibious warfare ship.
• Type R refrigerated cargo ships, also called Reefer ships, design R2-S-BV1.
• Seaplane derricks, design class YSD-11. A Crane Ship.
• 2 of 7 Fulton-class submarine tenders.
• 5 of 9 Chanticleer-class Submarine rescue ships.

World War 2 Ships

World War 1

For World War 1 Moore Shipbuilding Company built for the US Shipping Board a number of ships, including some that become Empire ships: