The deterioration of our well-known Cement Ship continues as the storms of winter continue their assault. The SS Palo Alto was built as a concrete tanker by the San Francisco Shipbuilding Company at the U.S. Naval Shipyard in Oakland, California too late to see service in World War I. She was launched on May 29, 1919 and was mothballed in Oakland until 1929, when the Seacliff Amusement Corporation bought her.
The SS Palo Alto was towed to what is now Seacliff State Beach. She was sunk just off the beach with her keel resting on the bottom. A pier was built leading to the ship and she was refitted as an amusement ship with a dance floor, a swimming pool and a café. Two years later during the great depression the company went bankrupt and she was stripped of her fine fittings and left as a fishing pier.
Today at the age of 97 the SS Palo Alto sits at the end of a fishing pier on Seacliff Beach serving as an artificial reef for marine life and a unique reminder of the past as the sea relentlessly caresses and sometimes batters her as it brings her back to itself.
