The story about the ships beneath San Francisco is true. Hundreds of ships were abandoned by hopeful gold miners. One fellow set up a salvage company, hauling some of them ashore and leaving some afloat to be used as storage units, boarding houses and even a jail and a church. The city needed to expand its acreage so that they could expand the harbor so they sold water lots. People would take an abandoned boat, scuttle it, and then claim the lot. To keep it they had to fill in the water by dumping rock, sand, and dirt. As it settled, much of it served to support the ships and many of the hulls were preserved largely intact. Decades later as underground utilities were being installed the ships were discovered. So far they have found some 500 of them. Much of downtown San Francisco was built on top of them,
