Overview

The Shaw-Batcher Company shipbuilding and pipe-producing complex operated for about 70 years, from about 1913 until 1983, under four different owners.

Building History

As noted by the South San Francisco Public Library, the Shaw-Batcher Company was founded in Sacramento, CA, in 1892. This South San Francisco production facility on "Butler Road" (later listed as 1050 Oyster Point Boulevard), started operating in 1912 on a contract from the US Shipping Board to produce cargo ships. The Western Pipe and Steel Company purchased the shipyard by in 06/1917, but it continued to be known as "Shaw-Batcher" into 1918. In 10/1918, the Shaw Batcher Company employed 4,335 workers. (See Newspapers.com, "Shaw-Batcher Leads in Shipyard Sales," San Francisco Chronicle, 10/18/1918, p. 9.)

During its first five years of operation if had become the Pacific Coast's largest pipe producer and South San Francisco's second-biggest ferrous metal plant. (See Flickr.com and South San Francisco Public Library.org, "Industry: Shaw Batcher Company, shipyards during World War I," accessed 06/17/2025.)

Following World War I, Western Pipe and Steel gradually discontinued shipbuilding at this facility and concentrated on manufacturing piping. During the 1920s through the 1940s, this plant produced pipes and other steel framing members used in a number of large-scale infrastructure projects in the West, including Hetch-Hetchy Dam (aka the "O'Shaughnessy Dam," constructed in stages between 1914 and 1938), Grand Coulee Dam (1933-1942), Shasta Dam (1938-1945) and Folsom Dam (1951-1956). In 1939, on the eve of World War II, Western reopened the yard to build ships for the war effort. According to the National Iron and Steel Heritage Museum.org, "In total, from 1941 to 1947, Western Pipe & Steel Company build more than 100 ships." (See National Iron and Steel Museum.org, "Western Pipe and Steel Company," accessed 06/17/2025.) Another source indicated of the Shaw-Batcher / Western Pipe and Steel Company plant: "The Shaw‐Batcher shipyard built cargo ships and between wars it built barges and dredges and fabricated pipe - becoming one of the pioneers of automatic welding machinery. The shipyard in South San Francisco had four berths from which ships were uniquely launched sideways – two on each side of a large basin at Oyster Point." (See The San Francisco Peninsula.com, "City of South San Francisco," accessed 06/17/2025.)

In late 1945, the complex was sold to Consolidated Steel of CA . (See Facebook.com and The Historical Society of South San Francisco.org, "1918 launch of the #freighter #WestCactus from #WesternPipeSteel," accessed 06/17/2025.) Subsequently, in the midst of the rapid reorganization of the steel industry during the later 1940s, US Steel took over Consolidated in 1948. (See National Iron and Steel Museum.org, "Western Pipe and Steel Company," accessed 06/17/2025.)

PCAD id: 25769