Commissioners and set about the task of building a Seawall on the San Francisco waterfront. The project that would eliminate the patchwork and jagged lines of the waterfront, ending it cleanly at the modern Embarcadero. After four years of litigation, the commissioners offered a thousand dollar prize for the best plan for the San Francisco Seawall. One of the designers of the plan, W.J. Lewis was appointed engineer in chief of the project. Another engineer on the project, T.J. Arnold designed the curving waterfront eventually settled on. A pit or channel in the mudflats was dredged to a depth of below low tide level and huge loads of rock were placed from watercraft at the center line of the trench until they stopped sinking, to make an evenly graded ridge the whole way at the height of mean low tide. The rocks became the foundation for the Seawall. Coffer dams were sunk and forms constructed inside them while constant pumping occurred. A mass of concrete thick and wide was poured over the rocks and a masonry wall seven feet at the base and nine feet high was constructed. The area inside the wall was pumped out and filled with rock, rubble and trash to the city grade. It took the board several years to acquire the leases on private wharves. The opening of the First transcontinental railroad in 1869 halted harbor development and the building of the Seawall. The tonnage of vessels arriving at the port dropped by nearly half in the next two years. By 1871, the commissioners could report that they were in possession of all the wharves along the city front except those that bordered Channel Street between Third and Fourth streets. In 1881, the harbor commissioners began contracting for the construction of the San Francisco Seawall. The Seawall took 50 years before completion of the last sections in the China Basin. Chapter 835 of the Statutes of 1929 created the State operated San Francisco Harbor Bond Finance Board. The 1929 act provided for the issuance and sale of state bonds to create a fund for the improvement of San Francisco Harbor by the California Board of State Harbor Commissioners. Chapter 368 of the Statutes of 1937 changed the name of the commission to the California Board of State Harbor Commissioners for San Francisco Harbor. Chapter 112 of the Statutes of 1957 renamed the commission yet again