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United Engineering Co.

American shipbuilding and repair yard

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General referenceInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionDec 28, 2025
Entity authorityQ16985959
Source-derived summary

United Engineering Co. (incorporated 10 October 1917, about six months after the sale of the predecessor company United Engineering Works to the Bethlehem Shipbuilding Corporation where it became their Alameda Works), in Alameda, California, was a shipbuilding and repair yard active during World War II. Located along the Oakland-Alameda Estuary, The yard was established in 1941, before that time, United Engineering owned facilities acquired from the Risdon Iron Works at Steuart and Folsom streets (37.79086°N 122.39025°W / 37.79086; -122.39025) and from T. J. Moynihan & Company the corner of Folsom and Fremont (37.788087°N 122.39365°W / 37.788087; -122.39365), just north-west of where the Oakland bay Bridge would later connect.

History

United Engineering Works traces its history back to 1897.

UEC obtained the rights to build Franco Tosi (Legnano, Italy) four-cycle marine diesel engines in 1919.

In 1940 the shipyard in Alameda was constructed on property previously occupied by repair shops of the Southern Pacific Railroad.

Among its many activities, United Engineering built 21 oceangoing tugs for the U.S. Navy.

The facilities that made up United Engineering were built by various interests from 1910–1915, and were first used for building the Red Cars of the extensive East Bay Electric Lines of the Southern Pacific company. They were expanded and converted to shipyard use from 1941-1945. During both periods of its history, the facility was one of Alameda's largest employers and played an important economic and social role in the city.

The facilities' shipbuilding use declined after World War II, and as of 2001, seventeen of its buildings remained on the site.

Editorial summary

“United Engineering Co.” enters the record as american shipbuilding and repair yard. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what United, Engineering and American can confirm, complicate or overturn.

Editorial reviewA practical starting point whose main value is the path it opens into stronger specialist and primary sources. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1917, 1941, 1897, 1919—that can be checked directly. The selected authority fields contribute no independent date. Its strongest next move is a source search built around United, Engineering and American.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

“United Engineering Co.” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, United, Engineering and American provides the most credible route into that argument.

Evidence profile

Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated Dec 28, 2025. The linked authority identifier is Q16985959. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1917, 1941, 1897 and 1919.

Critical limits

Overview language is designed for orientation and should not be treated as a substitute for the evidence cited beneath it. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Use the entry as an orientation point, then follow its citations and revision history. Names, dates and institutional relationships should be checked against the original record.

Best used for
  • Subject orientation
  • Search vocabulary
  • Locating named sources
Verify next

The closest primary source, responsible institution and strongest cited specialist reference.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “United Engineering Co.”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow United Engineering Co. primary sources, United Engineering Co. archive and United research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “United Engineering Co.”?
  2. Which cited source is closest to the event, object or claim?
  3. Which institution is responsible for the underlying evidence?
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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from United Engineering Co.” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.