With President Donald Trump vowing to revive America’s shrinking shipbuilding industry, Stockton Mayor Christina Fugazi is leading the charge to resurrect what once was one of the city’s most important industries.
“This would bring thousands of jobs for our region,” Fugazi said at this week’s City Council meeting. “They will be livable-wage jobs. I definitely think this would be an opportunity for us, considering what we used to be.”
Unlike other coastal areas, Stockton has plenty of room in its port to handle the massive footprint that a shipyard would require. And the city has lower-cost housing than many Pacific Coast cities, making it easier to attract would-be shipyard workers.
But other cities already have the same idea. Vallejo has Mare Island, once the Navy’s most important West Coast shipbuilding and repair hub. And even Solano County is being touted as a potential shipyard site, the San Francisco Chronicle reports.
The sudden interest is no coincidence.
In his address to Congress last month, Trump said he plans to open an Office of Shipbuilding in the White House. His hope is to return to the U.S. to a shipbuilding power.
The plan would take a lot of work. The Associated Press recently reported that China now builds more than half of all ships in the world, while America’s market share has shrunk to 0.1%.
Not only has the decline of American shipbuilding meant the loss of thousands of jobs, it also has ramifications for national defense. The U.S. won the fight in the Pacific during World War II in large part due to its massive shipbuilding effort. Thousands of hulls made their way to the shipbuilders, and an ample supply of both shipyards and workers — remember the celebrated Rosie the Riveter? — meant battle-damaged warships could be fixed quickly and returned to service.
Stockton played an impressive role in the effort. Stephens Brothers, one of the city’s numerous shipyards at the time, launched its first naval vessel within days of the attack on Pearl Harbor. By 1943, about 10 shipyards had churned out vessels and related components of all sorts, from landing crafts to floating dry docks.
The industry hung on into the 1950s, when Stockton shipyards built three sister ships of the USS Lucid, now part of the Stockton Maritime Museum.
Today, the Port of Stockton has 2,000 acres of largely barren, underutilized real estate on Rough and Ready Island. The expanse is punctuated by train tracks and warehouses. The port contrasts with those in Oakland, Los Angeles and Long Beach, where the valuable waterfront is taken up by stacks of shipping containers.
“We don’t have to reinvent the wheel,” Fugazi said, alluding to Stockton’s shipbuilding heritage. She suggested that Delta College could play a role in training workers in the skilled trades critical for a shipyard.
“We’re ready to go,” she said.
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