Postmark "San Francisco Ferry"??????

Hi,
I discovered a cover on ebay with this postmark.



I never saw some postmark and in my literature I find nothing. I tried to look in the internet but no result.
Here the hole cover



Can anybody explain what kind of postmark is it??

Regards

Juergen

San Francisco has a "Ferry Station". Fairly common to have the station name inside of the double oval cancels, which are most commonly seen on parcel post and registered mail.

Add: This cover did not travel by boat.

Add: A good affordable survey of 1900-1940 U.S. postmarks is Richard Helbock's "Postmarks on Postcards"

The Golden Gate Bridge was not yet open (opening day was May 27, 1937), so apparently this was flown from the new Santa Rosa Airport to the Ferry Terminal in San Francisco (I assume - I don't know if they had a place to land or used seaplanes or ?)

Many thanks @John Becker and @jamesg for these information. I thought about whether the letter was carried by boat.
Thanks for he hint about this book. Maybe I look for it and when its cheap......who knows, maybe I will buy it?
I waste no thought about the golden gate bridge. So I had no idea when it was openend. Sorry, I am a German and living in Germany. San Francisco and the history is far away. Now You wrote about it I remember - the great depression and the plans of Your President to overcome (sorry, I do not know yet who it was) - and the bridge was build in case of this, am I right?
So I have learned a little bit more about the history of the States, especialy San Francisco.

Good morning gettinold and all,

San Francisco Municipal Airport was located twelve miles south of the main post office in San Mateo County east of San Bruno just outside the city limits sign. My guess is this, and possibly other air mail items were processed at Ferry Station which I think was near the Oakland Ferry terminal. Can anyone else confirm this information?

I find no indication of a sea plane landing site in this era but that does not mean they did not. Santa Rosa airport did not sit on a shoreline so my thoughts are this cover never made a splash

No place to land there. More likely it was flown from Santa Rosa to SFO, which was operating, then driven to the Ferry Building station for processing. A clerk there noticed that the Santa Rosa CDS did not strike the stamp, and canceled it.

what's with this "Ferry Station Post Office Building"? I found it at wikipedia.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ferry...ice_Building

It is a short description. May be somebody knows/finds more!?

grisuhh62

The link contains info relative to your cover and the postmark date: " In 1925 it ceased to be a post office and was used for transportation company offices; in 1933 it was transferred to the state Agriculture Department.[3][4]'

It seems to me that the Wikipedia information adds to the puzzle. The cover in the original post was postmarked in 1936, but the article tells us the Ferry Post Office was closed in 1925 and the building converted to transportation company offices and in 1933 to the state Department of Agriculture.

If there was no post office there in 1935, why would the letter have gone there and received an additional postmark? Perhaps, there was another Ferry Station in San Francisco in 1935, but even if so, why would it have gone there? Wouldn't there have been an airmail postal facility at a large city like San Francisco in 1935 to apply a receiving cancel?

It's an airmail letter addressed to a New York address. If flown to the San Francisco airport from Santa Rosa, why was it just not given a receiving cancel there and put on the first available eastbound flight? Perhaps, misdirected upon arrival at San Francisco?

Are there any receiving cancels on the reverse?

DonSellos

The Wikipedia article is misleading. It is a history of a specific building, which housed San Francisco's Ferry Station for a portion of the Station's operation. It would appear the station moved to different quarters and continued to operate. The building was then repurposed, although I do not find a location change noted in the Postal Bulletins in that timespan.

Add: From the Postal Bulletins, it is clear that Ferry Station was the major processing hub in San Francisco for ship mail, airmail, rail, star routes, etc. Ferry Station was replaced by the newly built Rincon Station in late 1940.

Here's an image dated 1925 of the "new ferry station." As an SF native, this building looks familiar but I haven't yet found its present address, presuming it still exists. Given the substantial construction, it should.

https://calisphere.org/item/c1d3278...6b45e5bfb61/

San Francisco Examiner, Monday April 13, 1925, p4:

The building is gone, then. It would have been demolished no later than 1965 to create the Washington St off ramp of the Embarcadero Freeway, which was in turn removed in 1991 after the Loma Prieta earthquake. The site now is Sue Bierman Park and is directly across the street from the Ferry (terminal) Building.

it seems that nothing really can be found out in the internet. But many thanks for Your posts and efforts.
As a supplement here the back (may be a little late)

An addendum to this thread:

I ran across these two California Collectors Club covers in a batch of unsorted stuff. They don't change any information in the above posts, but do confirm the transfer of mail processing from the Ferry Annex Station to the Rincon Annex Station on October 27-28, 1940.

DonSellos