Page 8 - RedWhiteFleet_interiors_Sep10

INTRODUCTION

he launching of a San Francisco maritime legacy waterfront in order to be the first to hear about incoming BELOW: Tom Crowley, founder of BELOW: Crowley’s early-twentieth- very good with people,” Escher says of Crowley. “He used the iconic Golden Gate Bay Cruise. Launched during the
began with one teenager, two oars, and an ships. Always on the cutting edge of the era’s technology, the company that would become the century tugboat fleet included the to say, ‘If you can offer the best service for the customers 1939 Golden Gate International Exposition, this tour
Teighteen-foot Whitehall rowboat . . . he was an early adopter of the region’s first gas-powered Red and White Fleet, got his start by Crowley No. 6 (left) and the Crowley . . . that’s what people want and all the rest is bunk.’ ” went on to become the longest-running narrated tour
In 1892, seventeen-year-old Thomas Crowley launches, enabling him to carry ever-larger numbers of rowing out from the San Francisco No. 1 (right, seen towing a barge out This focus on providing the best for the passengers in the San Francisco Bay. In 2019, it is still offered up to
waterfront in a tiny Whitehall
to the SS Nevadan).
purchased his first Whitehall and went into business sailors and supplies for the same output of manpower. rowboat, like the men pictured here, he served would soon change the course of the company twelve times a day.
on the San Francisco waterfront. He worked around Most importantly, he also cared deeply for the jockeying to provide shore services FOLLOWING PAGES: More forever. In 1915, Crowley had the idea to begin catering As the years went on, the tour portion of the business
the clock, rowing out to meet incoming ships, taking community he called home. In the days following to ships coming into the Bay. early Crowley boats sit at port, to tourists arriving in San Francisco for the Panama- came to be called the Red and White Fleet and developed
orders for much-needed supplies and groceries, and San Francisco’s devastating 1906 earthquake, he and including another Crowley barge, Pacific International Exposition, and the company’s a large roster of tours and ferry services. As Crowley
ferrying captains and crew across the Bay to the wharves his company worked tirelessly to ferry stranded city Crowley No. 23 (left), and an early first passenger sightseeing tours were born. Crowley Maritime became more and more invested in moving
dedicated sightseeing boat, Crowley
of San Francisco. residents to safer ports across the Bay, even as other ferry No. 17 (right, in background). refined these tours over the next several decades, before cargo, this aspect of the business overshadowed the San
It was a rough existence. Whitehall boats were little companies closed their doors. “Baba, my grandfather, was launching the tour that became the company’s legacy: Francisco tours. In 1997, Thomas B. Crowley Jr. put the
more than open-air vessels, with nowhere to hide from
the waves or elements. Rowing as far out as the Farallon
Islands, often as many as thirty miles out to sea, Crowley
did whatever was needed to secure the day’s business,
going above and beyond what other Whitehall boatmen
were willing to endure. As his grandson Tom Escher
would say over a century later, “The choice was to starve,
or to row. He chose to row.”
He did much more than that. Not only did Crowley
provide for himself and his family, but over the following
decades, he built his business from a single rowboat
into a maritime empire. By relentlessly reinvesting his
profits into the company, he was able to amass a small
fleet of boats, hire employees to run them at all hours of
the day and night, and build a bunkhouse right on the

8 • Red and White Fleet Introduction • 9