Port Chicago, California |County||Contra Costa County|
|Elevation||13 ft (4 m)| Port Chicago was a town on the southern
banks of Suisun Bay, in Contra Costa County, California. It was
located 6.5 miles (10 km) east-northeast of Martinez, at an
elevation of 13 feet (4 m). It is famous as the site of a
devastating explosion at its Naval Munitions Depot during World
War II. The area was first settled by Anglo American squatters
between 1850 and 1851, including Josiah Knight and Samuel E.
Strode. The first permanent settler was Daniel Cunningham. Port
Chicago was originally called Bay Point. The town was created
when the Bay Point Land Company, with offices in San Francisco,
filed an official plat map at the Contra Costa County Recorder’s
Office. The Southern Pacific Railroad ran through the town. In
1931, as the Great Depression worsened, Walter Van Winkle, a
business leader, proposed and succeeded in getting the name of
the town changed from Bay Point to Port Chicago. The Baypoint
post office operated from 1901