‘Founders Day’ will bring Vallejo’s Naval history to life

VALLEJO — The Mare Island Historic Park Foundation will celebrate the anniversary of the founding of the U.S. Naval Shipyard this month in 1854 with a unique event: a reenactment of what life was like on the shipyard and the island during World War II. 

A troupe of actors from the nonprofit organization Interpreting History will bring to life events and stories of that era on Sept. 14 to celebrate Founders Day.

This is the fourth year that the park foundation has celebrated Founders Day, but in the past they had different types of events, such as a festival open for families and a behind the scenes bus tour with stops and docents at various locations. 

“This year we decided to do something new and combine these two concepts, but make it a walking tour,” said Kent Fortner, president of the park foundation’s board. “We’ve partnered with this acting troupe called Interpreting History. They are super excited. They are costuming down to the buttons and have researched their characters.”

The guided tour will begin at the Admiral Mansion, where guests will enjoy drinks and a silent auction, and meet Adm. David Farragut, the founder of the U.S. Naval Shipyard. “Farragut, who used to live in the house where we’re going to be standing at, is going to give a little history of the island to start everything off,” Fortner said. “Then he’ll be a sort of time traveler, taking the audience to the end of World War II.” 

From the Admiral Mansion, attendees will be divided into three groups of 50 people each and walk to three stations. One will be Building 116, where welders used to meet in the mornings to learn their assignment for the day. Four actresses representing Wendy the Welders “are going to speak of the amazing contributions made by women in the workforce,” Fortner said. They have even studied how to weld to prepare for their characters.

Another station will have a survivor of the USS Indianapolis. This ship left Mare Island in July 1954 in a secret trip to deliver parts of the atomic bomb that would be dropped on Hiroshima to a naval base in the Mariana Islands. A few days after completing this mission, the USS Indianapolis was sunk by a Japanese submarine and only 316 men survived from a crew of almost 1,200. The actor will give a first person account of this historic ship and its dramatic journey in front of the dry docks.

The third station will have Mel Orpilla, author of the book Filipinos in Vallejo, impersonating his own father, Nazario Orpilla, who worked at the Navy shipyard together with his brothers Modesto and Clemente. 

“Mare Island was the magnet that pulled our large Filipino population to this area,” Orpilla said. “My own father started working here in 1932, along with two of his brothers. He was an unskilled laborer, and unskilled laborers were the ones who unloaded the boxcars, stacked equipment, and swept the shops… you know, basically the gophers.”

The Philippines became a U.S. territory after the Treaty of Paris ended the Spanish-American War in 1898, which forced Spain to cede the Philippines to the U.S. for $20 million. As American nationals, Filipinos could come to the U.S. and many arrived to work and make a better life. 

Orpilla will speak to the rich history of Filipinos in Vallejo, from when the Philippines became a territory of the United States, to the first Filipino family who was established in Vallejo, and the important role of Filipinos during World War II and on Mare Island. Orpilla’s father served four years in Pearl Harbor, and after the war remained working on Mare Island as a civilian.

“Talking about our history and culture is like my gospel,” Orpilla said, “because there’s very few people who have the deep understanding and knowledge, who actually lived through it as well as can articulate it.”

The guided tour will end up in the Admiral Mansion again, where all the actors will join the guests and interact with them one-on-one, answering any questions they may have, without breaking character.

“We envision being able to do a similar program every year for Founders’ Day but for a different era,” Fortner said. “We could do World War I, we could do Vietnam, we could do the Cold War, we could even do the Native American experience. Now that we’ve partnered with this acting troupe and they are so enthusiastic, they can come learn about the different aspects.”

But Founders Day is not the only project the park foundation is focused on. 

“Right now we are 80% done with digitizing the Mare Island Grapevine, which was the daily newspaper of Mare Island and it’s a wealth of information,” Fortner said. “We are refinishing the exterior siding of St. Peter’s Chapel and we are restoring and renovating the servants quarters at the Admiral Mansion to serve as a base for events we do there. It will have an ADA bathroom, changing rooms for bride and groom, a place for the caterers, etc.”

All these projects are funded through a $1.2 million grant that was secured by U.S. Reps. Mike Thompson and John Garamendi. Concurrently, the city secured a grant through the National Park Service to work on the seismic retrofit of the Admiral’s Mansion.

What’s still missing is the park foundation museum, which had to close in 2020 because it was not seismically retrofitted. Almost 5,000 artifacts are still stored there and being catalogued for whenever the foundation can find another building in Mare Island to host the museum, since the previous one would be too expensive to retrofit. 

A research library at 1175 Nimitz Ave. is open and offers over 3,000 photographs and 10,000 clippings that are not available anywhere else. 

The history of Mare Island is rich and fascinating. You can get a taste of it during the Founders Day event. There are only 150 tickets available for what promises to be a fun and informative afternoon. Tickets cost $30 or $35 with a drink included. If you are interested you can buy a ticket here.