STOCKTON, Calif. — A fire along Stockton's downtown waterfront left a historic building destroyed Tuesday. The building and months of work to turn it into an exhibit at a floating museum docking across the water in 2024 was burned away.
As crowds of people flocked to the fire scene near Stockton and Lindsay Streets Tuesday night, Rex Ramsey started receiving frantic texts and phone calls from fellow volunteers and colleagues at the Stockton Historical Maritime Museum.
"I'm on the board of directors for the Stockton Maritime Museum, and the president – I got a text message from him and the next thing I know, I got a picture from him," said Ramsey. "It was devastating."
The fire reduced a historic building at the now-shuttered Colberg Boat Works to rubble. Inside the building — once considered a workplace for thousands of Stockton residents — workers manufactured dozens of ships, some of which were used during World War Two.
For historians, who say the shipyard was first opened in 1896, the historic building represented an often-forgotten industry once integral to Stockton's economy.
"Stockton had a tremendous maritime industry. It started with the gold rush because it provided the furthest east point of disembarking from the water heading up to the gold rush," said Ramsey. "Then it expanded into shipbuilding operations. There were three or four at the ship works, building ships for the Navy during World War Two."
USS Lucid to move to downtown Stockton
When organizers were planning to move the USS Lucid, a now refurbished 1953 U.S. Navy Minesweeping ship, into the downtown Stockton waterfront to be used as a floating museum, they wanted to ass the building from the Colberg Boat Works to the land portion of the site.
"The scale and the scope of the old maritime industry has been lost," said Ramsey. "And it's our goal to preserve that information and showcasing, in the future, some of the fantastic yachts, sailboats that were crafted, designed and set out sea or into the delta from the city of Stockton."
The decision was easy but the months of planning, cutting through red tape and work required to physically move the building across the waterfront were time-consuming, Ramsey said. The organization had planned to begin moving the building to the new site next year.
"We had planned to put this ship on the waterfront for 10 years and over the last six to eight months we've had a very active effort after having the property donated to us," said Ramsey. "[The shipyard building] was going to be a mainstay and a center attraction piece for the physically built portion of the museum, and was also going to be a place where we could have more students because education is a strong component of our organization."
With piles of charred wood sitting where the building once stood, museum organizers are back to square one – deciding how to move forward with preserving the city's rich shipbuilding history.
"We're gathering up all the potential solutions. A replica building could be a possibility as we had completed a preliminary audit, measuring and photographing the interior," said Ramsey. "We're in discussions and I think over the next two to four weeks, we'll be organizing and releasing how we're going to be moving forward."
For now, Ramsey and fellow volunteers are brainstorming while putting the finishing touches on the USS Lucid before its planned 2024 move into the downtown waterfront.
"We still expect that we will initiate the site preparation work in the first or second quarter of 2023. We expect to move the ship in 2024-- sooner if we can" said Ramsey. "We have a great team now, but always looking to expand that and education is our point of growth."
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