Editor’s note: This is part of an occasional series about people, places and things in San Joaquin County as the county marks its 175th anniversary.

STOCKTON — California’s fifth busiest port is 72 nautical miles from the ocean.

It’s the Port of Stockton, 16 miles as the crow flies from downtown Manteca.

It can be seen from Interstate 5 once you drive north of the Highway 4 Crosstown Freeway

Last year, the 4,200-acre port on the Stockton Deep Water Channel handled 4.3 million metric tons and 288 vessels.

The cargo moved through the Port of Stockton — unlike at larger California ports such as Oakland and Long Beach on the coast that is almost exclusively containers — is primary bulk materials.

The top 20 commodities are bulk cement/slag, bulk coal, renewable fuels, liquid fertilizer, food grade oil, molasses, bulk beet pulp pellets, and sulfuric acid, bulk mineral sand, bulk sulfur, bulk fertilizer, anhydrous ammonia, bulk animal feed, steel products, bagged sugar, cottonseed, bulk rice, bulk soybean, bagged rice, and bagged fertilizer.

There are 11 ports in California with the only other inland port being in West Sacramento.

The Port of Stockton is farther east, hence the nickname “California’s Sunrise Seaport.”

The first cargo ship landed in Stockton in 1846.

Two years later, John Doak — for which Doak Boulevard in Weston Ranch is named — established the first ferry service on the San Joaquin River. 

His first loads were lumber shipped from San Francisco.

By the 1850s, Stockton became a key support base for the Gold Country’s  Southern Mines as a major center for commodity and supply shipping to the mines.

As gold mining faded, agricultural grew in the 1860s with Stockton becoming key shipping port for valley commodities such as wheat.

The river channel was adequate depth for small vessels but as cargo ships got bigger, a deeper channel was needed

The first dredging contracts for the Stockton Deepwater Channel were awarded in 1930. 

The Port District officially opened on February 2, 1933, when the ship Daisy Grey arrived bringing lumber from Oregon.

During World War II, when an attack on coastal California seemed likely, Stockton became a hub for ship building for the U.S. War Department.

Late in the war,  Rough and Ready Island where the port is located, was selected by the Navy for a new supply annex. 

Built partly with POW labor, an orderly system of warehouses, streets, offices, barracks, and railroads sprung up in months. After the war, the Navy added a modern communications station to serve Cold War needs.  

Inn 1996, when the Navy transferred most of the property on the Island to the Port of Stockton. The historic warehouses are now filled with everything from onions to recycled glass.   

To contact Dennis Wyatt, email dwyatt@mantecabulletin.com