Richard Tooker

Biography

Richard Tooker was born July 2, 1917 in Syracuse, New York and raised in Canajoharie. He graduated in 1938 from Syracuse University and moved to San Francisco, California in 1942 were he began working for Southern Pacific Railroad. He later worked for a travel agency and then for Social Security Administration until 1980.

In 1959, Mr. Tooker began traveling the coast of Northern California as part of his interest in scuba diving. He started accumulating photographs and researching the local history related to the lumber trade which included the various ports and dogholes for loading cargoe on coastal vessels such as steam schooners. He conducted oral history interviews with locals and collected photographs especially of the Casper Lumber Company activities in Mendocino, California. He wrote and published short articles in the CenCal News, the newsletter of the Central California Council of Diving Clubs from 1963 to 1972. In 1968, his article "Loading by High-line on the California Coast" was published in Sea Letter, a publication of the San Francisco Maritime Museum.

In 1980, Mr. Tooker began regularly volunteering at San Francisco Maritime Museum and was eventually hired to work in the Historic Documents Department where he remained until his retirement in 1995.

Mr. Tooker died in San Francisco, California on August 8, 2000.