Crowdsourcing San Francisco Bay

Photo: Joshua Cassidy

A historic scaw schooner that once hauled goods around San Francisco Bay is now part of an online crowdsourcing history project about the bay.

Stanford University’s Center for Spatial and Textual Analysis is asking people to dig out old photos, letters, maps and other documents about the bay and people who lived and worked on it.

It’s all part of "Year of the Bay-2013" and to help launch it the Alma schooner sailed today from the San Francisco Maritime National Historical Park’s pier to Hunters Point, the site of where she was built in 1891.

Photo: Joshua Cassidy

The new SF Bay history project is part of a big year coming up for the Bay which includes the America’s Cup Races, the opening of a new span of the Bay Bridge and the 150th anniversary of the Port of San Francisco. “Year of the Bay” will also be celebrated with an exhibit called “Curating the Bay” at the California Historical Society and an exhibit at the Oakland Museum.