Point Isabel (promontory)

Point Isabel is a small promontory on the eastern shore of San Francisco Bay in the Richmond Annex neighborhood of Richmond, USA. It can be reached at the west terminus of Central Ave. from Richmond / El Cerrito.

Point Isabel is a hilltop in the ancient range of hills that also includes Albany Hill, Brooks Island, and the Potrero San Pablo. Rising sea levels following the last Ice Age formed San Francisco Bay and left the point as a rocky promontory joined to the mainland by a salt marsh that flooded at high tides. A large shell midden showed that Native Americans used the site. In the 19th Century, Pt. Isabel it was part of the Rancho San Pablo owned by Don Victór Castro whose father received it in a land grant from the Mexican Republic. Victor Castro named the point for his daughter Isabel. He used it as a landing for boats shipping grain and other articles across the Bay. In later years, the land was acquired by the Du Pont subsidiary Vigoret Powder Works of San Francisco, which used it primarily to store explosives. A wharf and railroad spur served the Vigoret site.

The original hilltop, significantly higher than the present elevation, was dynamited for development in the 1950s. The rubble was used to fill marshlands, widening the point and connecting it to the mainland. A dump for industrial waste filled tidelands north of the original point, separated from it by a tidal channel draining Hoffmann Marsh. This area became known as "Battery Point" because of the large number of batteries buried there. Industrial uses from pesticide manufacturing to waste-oil recycling, as well as a pistol range, left the land north and east of Point Isabel among the most polluted brownfield sites along San Francisco Bay, although some of these have been remediated. Dumping also changed the south shore; for example, the area known as "Tepco Beach" is covered with pastel fragments of china from an El Cerrito manufacturer. In recent years, part of the original point, Hoffman Marsh to the east, and later Battery Point were acquired by the East Bay Regional Parks District for its Point Isabel Regional Shoreline, and also by the State of California for its Eastshore State Park.

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