By Jim Lessenger

Editor’s note: First of three parts. Part two will be published in Sunday’s edition.

IT IS A QUESTION THAT HAS BEEN repeatedly brought before the City Council by Councilmember Tom Campbell: Who, in fact, owns the Port of Benicia wharves? The short answer is that AMPORTS owns the long wharf, and the Valero refinery, ostensibly, owns the refueling wharf.

That is, at least until 2031.

Like so many stories in Benicia, the history behind the wharves starts before the Gold Rush. It is told in documents from the city archives, the General Services Administration, libraries and the California Lands Commission. It is also told in The Herald and The Benician, the two city newspapers of the day.

The wharves of the Port of Benicia are located at Army Point — also known as Benicia Point — in what was until 1964 the Benicia Arsenal. They are best observed from the parking lot behind the Clocktower. There are two: the long wharf and the Valero fuel wharf. The long wharf is used by AMPORTS to accept shipments of automobiles and to export “petco” — petroleum coke, a byproduct of gasoline production. The first two-thirds or so of the long wharf is made from concrete, and the remainder is wood. The wooden part of the long wharf has been damaged substantially by two wars and at least two fires.

The Valero wharf was constructed in the late 1960s by the Humble Oil Company to receive crude oil from around the world. Construction on the refinery and wharf began in October 1966 and was completed two years later. The refinery came on line in February 1969.

The question of who owns the wharves includes the question of who owns the submerged and tidal lands beneath them. Another associated question: What entity owns the dry land of the port?

The Nineteenth Century

In 1846, James A. Hardie, a recent West Point graduate, was given the temporary grade of captain and sent by the Secretary of the Army to the West Coast to survey sites for future military bases. While in San Francisco, Hardie met with Robert Semple, the tall, dynamic developer of Benicia.

Hardie’s group was enticed to the city by its strategic location and the offer of free land on which to place a military reservation. Semple, in partnership with G. Mariano Vallejo, Thomas Larkin and Bethel Phelps, had created a development to be named after Vallejo’s wife and carved out of Rancho Suscol, owned by Vallejo. It is quite possible that if the land had not been free, the Army would have chosen a different location, because there was — and still is — no year-round water source in the area.

The first survey of Benicia in 1847 included a site for a military reservation. However, from the beginning there were questions about the ownership of the land. Recent documents from the State Lands Commission show that three individuals — including members of the Goodyear and Hastings families — laid claim to the shoreline where the wharves are now located. In addition, Rancho Canada del Hambrey Las Bolsas claimed Benicia Point.

Consequently, Army agents fanned out throughout California and secured deeds from Semple, Vallejo, Larkin, Phelps, and their wives. This process was repeated again in 1849. Also that year, Lt. William T. Sherman surveyed the line between the city of Benicia and the military reservation. The reservation remained outside the city limits until 1963, when it was incorporated by the City Council.

The military reservation at Benicia was originally divided into three separate activities, each commanded by a lieutenant colonel. The Benicia Barracks, founded in 1849, had infantry, cavalry and artillery units housed in 28 wooden buildings located where the AMPORTS parking lots are now situated. At the same time, a Quartermaster Depot comprised of several wooden warehouses was constructed on a location where Arts Benicia is now located.

The Arsenal, founded in 1852, originally consisted of the Commanding Officer’s Quarters, the Clocktower warehouse, the hospital (now the headquarters of the Port of Benicia), five magazines, two warehouses (now the museum), a pump house (now the museum office), and a wharf, all constructed of sandstone walls and redwood beams. Nineteenth-century maps show a stone wharf located approximately where the Benicia Bridge now spans the straits. The Quartermaster Depot had its own wharf, located approximately where the current long wharf sits.

The three separate activities of the military reservation were combined in 1924 into the Benicia Arsenal, two years after a devastating explosion and fire that destroyed all of the wooden buildings of the Barracks and one of the stone buildings of the Arsenal.

Dr. Jim Lessenger is president of the Benicia Historical Museum board of directors and the author, most recently, of “Commanding Officer’s Quarters of the Benicia Arsenal.”