The Dumbarton Bridge Records, my latest charge at the San Francisco Maritime Museum Research Center, consist of 63 items which pack into approximately two cubic feet. The majority of these items are log books containing the handwritten notes of seven decades of bridgetenders charged with opening and closing this Southern Pacific Railroad-owned bridge to allow vessels to pass as needed.
There is a great deal of potential research value I can imagine for these logs. The data within them reveals ship names, weather conditions, tracking of tides, as well as grittier details such as mechanical failures, collisions, and at least one mention of looking out for a dead body reported to be floating on the current. A researcher could discover the names of bridgetenders, their rate of pay, the hours they worked, and even their addresses and phone numbers. One could speculate on the ethnic groups represented by the last names of the workers, and observe how these change over the years with different waves of immigration and/or shifts in nationalist sentiment. There is also great potential in asking questions about what is not present; while there are several logs missing from the timeline, it is notable that the collection contains only two logs from the 1940’s.
What is most intriguing to me, however, is all of the ways this collection might be utilized that I cannot now imagine. As I clean, log, file, label, and box these items, I experience the thrill of burying something in a time capsule, knowing that sometime in the future, whether near or distant, someone unknown to me will uncover it. I am content that I cannot now know what they will make of what they find.