The Mare Island Naval Shipyard (MINSY or MINS) was the first United States Navy base established on the Pacific Ocean[4] and was in service 142 years from 1854 to 1996.

MINSY made a name for itself as the premier U.S. West Coast submarine port as well as serving as the controlling force in San Francisco Bay Area shipbuilding efforts during World War II.

[9] They managed to survey the Mare Island Strait[8] before steaming to Hawaii to obtain crewmen from Hawaiian monarch King Kamehameha III.

[10] They returned to San Francisco in the spring of 1850 with the coastal survey of northern California beginning on 4 April 1850 and continued up to the mouth of the Columbia River.

On 1 August 1850, while still in Oregon, McArthur purchased a 1⁄16 interest in Mare Island for $468.50[8] then returned to San Francisco later that month to prepare charts and write reports.

Although the 1854 Sanger plan was basically sound and mostly implemented, it did not overcome its natural shortcoming: the naval yard was built on an island on shallow San Pablo Bay.

[12]: 31–33 On 16 September 1854, the Navy commenced shipbuilding and ship repair operations at Mare Island under the command of then-Commander David Farragut, who later gained fame during the U.S. Civil War Battle of Mobile Bay, when he gave the order, "Damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead!"

Farragut and his newly appointed Civil Engineer, Daniel Turner, began to implement Sanger's original plan with only a few minor modifications.

[12]: 34–35 MINSY served as a major Pacific Ocean repair station during the late 19th century, handling American as well as Japanese and Russian vessels in the course of duty.

[15] According to historian McDonald, "The chapel, more than any other building, bears witness to the closeness of the community that developed at the Mare Island Naval Shipyard.

"[16] Mare Island Naval Shipyard also took a commanding role in civil defense and emergency response on the West Coast, dispatching warships to the Pacific Northwest to subdue Native American unrest.

[17] In 1911, the Marine Corps established two West Coast recruit training depots first at Mare Island, the second at Puget Sound, Washington.

Mare Island eventually became the West Coast's only recruit training facility when the Puget Sound operation consolidated to the San Francisco Bay Area in 1912.

On July 9, a gunpowder magazine containing 127,600 pounds of black powder blew up, damaging a number of surrounding buildings, and leaving a mystery as to what had caused it.

Suspicion settled on an identified German agent and possible saboteur, Lothar Witzke, but the investigation proved inconclusive and the official verdict was that the cause was unknown.

Stephen C. Ruder has suggested in a 2022 article that it may not have been an act of German sabotage but suicide by a civilian, Neil Damstedt, who was the principal victim and only individual inside the magazine at the moment of explosion.

[25] The 1918 Mare Island Marines football team fielded an entirely new roster, which achieved a similar level of success as the previous year.

[19] From around 1922 to 1937, an airfield was established west of the Marine Barracks (Building M37) as a support base for the Navy's first aircraft carrier, USS Langley, which had her origin at Mare Island.

[26] In 1919, MINSY was finally, after 65 years, linked to mainland Vallejo by a causeway with a drawbridge, which provided direct land-based movement of supplies and personnel across Mare Island Strait.

Owing to the shallowness of the shipping channels in Mare Island Strait and San Pablo Bay, the larger battleships and carriers of the Pacific fleet were sent not to MINSY but to leased dry docks then-privately owned at Hunters Point.

Base facilities included a hospital, ammunition depot, paint and rubber testing laboratories, and schools for firefighters, opticians, and anti-submarine attack during World War II.

[27] MINSY reached peak capacity for shipbuilding, repair, overhaul, and maintenance of many different kinds of seagoing vessels including both surface combatants and submarines.

Shipyard South had the newest and best-built or redesigned industrial buildings for mass pre-fabricated sub-assembly production of submarines as well as the waterfront repair of battle-damaged vessels.

Mare Island's military and civilian workforce raised almost $76M in war bonds; enough to pay for every one of the submarines built at MINSY prior to VJ Day.

Although the Navy intended from the outset to have a permanent dry dock at Mare Island, the funds were not available until 1872, when Congress authorized $2 million for its construction.

A key element to supporting the Pacific fleet was the construction a "state-of-the-art" Dry Dock 2 that can accommodate any ship of the Navy afloat or under design.

MINSY continued building non-nuclear subs through the Cold War including two of the three Barracuda-class submarines and USS Grayback, an early guided missile launcher.

Nautilus was decommissioned at Mare Island in 1980, then rigged for towing back to Groton, Connecticut, to serve as a museum of naval history.

U.S. Navy Reserve Units may still operate the slough portions of the State Wildlife Area for training purposes, as the navigable waters are considered public property.