Berkeley was one of several ferryboats of the Southern Pacific Railroad that for sixty years operated on San Francisco Bay between the Oakland Pier and the San Francisco Ferry Building. Built in 1898 by the Union Iron Works of San Francisco, she served after the 1906 earthquake, ferrying refugees across the bay to Oakland. Berkeley was declared a National Historic Landmark in 1990 and California State Historical Landmark No. 1031 in 2000. While Berkeley was under construction in 1898, the battleship USS Wisconsin (BB-9) was being constructed adjacent to her.