S.F. Bay Foghorns Vanish in Mist of Progress
San Francisco Bay has lost a little bit of its romance with the removal of the final foghorn that bellowed warnings to sailors.
The mournful sound has been replaced with a high-pitched electronic beep emitted from a high-tech gizmo installed Monday at Alcatraz.
The bay once was tended by 51 foghorns, said Wayne Wheeler, president of the U.S. Lighthouse Society.
“There was a cacophony of sound,” Wheeler said. “There were bells, whistles, reed trumpets, sirens. It was incredible. You could just imagine Sam Spade sidling down a Kearny Street hill looking for that crook.”
The foghorns have been replaced one by one with the electronic beacons. Wheeler said those too will go some day, and sailors will rely entirely on radar and other electronic warning systems.
Foghorns were preceded by a siege gun fired into the fog every half hour from Point Bonita in Marin County. The task not only used huge amounts of gunpowder but also made it difficult for the director of customs to sleep.
“I have been up three days and three nights,” one director wrote in 1857.
The first air-powered siren was installed near Alcatraz in 1903.
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