The waters off Lands End have swallowed ships for as long as ships have sailed through the Golden Gate. The SS Lyman Stewart, a steam tanker built in 1914 by the Union Iron Works Company of San Francisco for the Union Oil Company of California, joined that underwater graveyard when she wrecked off the rocky western shore of San Francisco. Named after Lyman Stewart, the president and co-founder of Union Oil, the vessel had spent her working years hauling petroleum products along the West Coast. Her wreck became one of the most visited dive sites in the Bay Area and a reminder that the same coastline tourists photograph from the Cliff House has been claiming vessels for centuries.
The Lyman Stewart was constructed at the Union Iron Works shipyard in San Francisco's Potrero Point neighborhood, one of the most productive shipyards on the West Coast. Union Iron Works had built warships for the Navy and commercial vessels for the Pacific trade since the 1880s. The tanker was designed to transport oil and petroleum products between ports along the western coast of the United States and Canada, serving the rapidly growing demand for fuel in the early automobile age. Union Oil Company, founded in 1890, was expanding aggressively to supply the California market. The Lyman Stewart was a workhorse vessel, not glamorous but essential to the infrastructure of a petroleum-dependent economy.
The coastline off Lands End and the entrance to the Golden Gate is one of the most dangerous stretches of water on the Pacific Coast. Strong currents, dense fog, submerged rocks, and unpredictable swells have claimed dozens of vessels over the centuries. The remains of the Lyman Stewart lie among these wrecks, in waters that are cold, murky, and frequently swept by powerful currents. Seal Rocks, the Sutro Baths ruins, and the Cliff House mark the shore above. Below the surface, the tanker's steel hull has become an artificial reef, colonized by marine life and explored by divers willing to brave the challenging conditions.
Shipwrecks off Lands End and Ocean Beach form an informal underwater museum of San Francisco's maritime history. The Lyman Stewart is one of the more accessible wrecks, though conditions vary dramatically with tides and weather. Her remains join those of other vessels lost to the same stretch of coast, each one a chapter in the story of a city built on maritime commerce. The Union Iron Works that built her, the oil company that operated her, and the rocky shore that claimed her all represent different facets of San Francisco's relationship with the sea: industry, ambition, and the ocean's ultimate indifference to both.
The SS Lyman Stewart wreck site is at approximately 37.78N, -122.52W, offshore from Lands End at the northwestern tip of San Francisco. The wreck is submerged and not visible from the air, but the rocky coastline where she went down is clearly visible -- marked by the Cliff House, Seal Rocks, and the Sutro Baths ruins. Nearest airports: KSFO 14nm south, KOAK 13nm east.