Alameda, Italy
W. F. Stone & Son or Stone Boat Yard was a small wooden shipbuilding company in Alameda, California. To support the World War 2 demand for ships W. F. Stone & Son built tugboats, sub chasers and minesweepers. For World War 1 the shipyard, then called W. F. Stone & Son at Kennedy and Bocimer Streets,
built tugboats for postwar work in 1921. The shipyard was opened in 1853 by William F. Stone (W. F. Stone), from Dartmouth, England, at the Hunter's Point in San Francisco Bay, near the current Hunters Point Naval Shipyard. In 1892 William Stone's son, Frank, ran the company and moved the shipyard to Tiburon. In 1899 he moved the shipyard again to Harbor View, San Francisco. In 1911, he again moved to Diesel Way, in Oakland, near Union Point Park on the Tidal Canal. When Lester Stone, Frank's son, became a partner, the company was changed to W. F. Stone & Son. In 1923, Frank Stone died, Lester Stone continued the company. In 1942 the company moved again, to 2517 Blanding Ave, Alameda on the south side of the Tidal Canal. In 1970 Lester Stone retired and sold the shipyard to John Whitset. Whitset, who did not rename the company, the company went into bankruptcy in 1986. It came out of bankruptcy...
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