The Port of Redwood City is a marine freight terminal on the western side of the southern San Francisco Bay, on the West Coast of the United States. This marine terminal is situated within the city of Redwood City, California. The port was developed from a natural deepwater channel discovered in the year 1850, at the mouth of Redwood Creek. From the early use as a log float port, commercial use expanded to a variety of industrial commodities; moreover, it is considered the birthplace of shipbuilding on the North American west coast. As of 2004 the annual freight shipments have reached about two million metric tons. The Port of Redwood City provides berths for dry bulk, liquid bulk, and project cargoes, along with certain recreational opportunities and public access to San Francisco Bay. The Port of Redwood City is the only deepwater port in the South San Francisco Bay. Significant expanses of bay mud are present nearby: in Redwood Creek, Westpoint Slough and especially at the mouth of Redwood Creek, where bay muds extend almost two kilometers into San Francisco Bay. In fact, the Port of Redwood City is the only major California port with significant expanses of natural habitat area in its immediate proximity. History Robert O. Tripp (founder of the historic Woodside Store) and Mathias A. Parkhurst began the first lumber operation using the waterways of Redwood Creek to float coast redwoods from Woodside to San Francisco in 1850. These two men thus became the founders of Redwood City itself. The Port of Redwood City is considered the place of genesis for the shipbuilding industry on the Pacific West Coast. The first schooner was built here in 1851 by G.M. Burnham and appropriately named Redwood. Shipbuilding thrived here until the 1880s. The last wooden ship built in Redwood City, called the Perseverance, was launched in 1883. The shipbuilding industry experienced a revival in the 1918s with the building of the first concrete ship in America, the SS Faith. The Port was called El Embarcadero up until at least the 1880s; the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers dredged of a channel between 1886 and 1889, to yield a channel wide. In 1903, the Corps increased the channel width to and by 1911, they broadened it to . In 1931, local and federal interests combined to deepen the channel to and widen it to , for a lineal distance of