Moore Dry Dock Company

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.

In 1909, Moore and Scott decided to move across the Bay, and so purchased the W. A. Boole & 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. Henry T. Scott and John T. Scott tried to establish a rival business with the Pacific Coast Shipbuilding Company, an enterprise that eventually did not outlive the World War I shipbuilding boom. The Design 1015 ship was also called the Moore & Scott Type.

In 1922, Moore Shipbuilding renamed to the Moore Dry Dock Company, operating primarily as a repair yard, amidst a severe lack of demand for new construction in the 1920s and early 1930s. Its shipbuilding capabilities were again promptly expanded for the World War II boom, 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.

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.

W. A. Boole & Son
18 May 1901, the Lahaina, the first ship built in Oakland, is launched from the yard of W. A. Boole & Son at the foot of Adeline street. Adeline street is at the easternmost part of the property that later makes up Moore.

June 1901, a 3000-ton marine railway built by H. I. Crandall & Son of Massachusetts becomes operational in the Boole shipyard.

26 March 1909, it is announced that Moore & Scott have acquired the Boole shipyard for ca. $500,000.

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:

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.

Shipbuilding in Oakland and Alameda
The area of the Port of Oakland was a major shipbuilding center of the Bay Area during the war peaks that started in 1916 and 1940 and ended in 1922 and 1946. Like for the rest of the country, shipbuilding either came to a complete halt for many of the yards or proceeded at a much reduced rate in the interwar years due to the saturation of the market and during a time of arms reduction treaties and economic austerity.




 * Outer Harbor
 * Union Construction Company (1918 — 1922) 37.81727°N, -122.31549°W
 * Inner Harbor, north bank
 * Moore Dry Dock Company (1910 — 1956) 37.79697°N, -122.29014°W
 * Hanlon Dry Dock and Shipbuilding (1918 — 1921) 37.78894°N, -122.26242°W
 * Cryer & Sons
 * Inner Harbor, south bank
 * United Engineering Co. (1941 — 1945) 37.79085°N, -122.29075°W
 * later Todd Shipyards, San Francisco Division repair yard
 * Alameda Works Shipyard (1916 — 1924, 1942 — 1945) 37.78694°N, -122.27528°W
 * formerly United Engineering Works (1900 — 1916)
 * Pacific Bridge Company 37.77752°N, -122.25436°W
 * General Engineering & Dry Dock Company 37.77582°N, -122.25084°W
 * Pacific Coast Engineering
 * Stone Boat Yard

See also
 * California during World War II
 * USSB reports