Charles B. Ryder's wharf on Trinidad Head was completed in August, 1859. Atop it ran a railway with cars drawn by mules or oxen. Rusted rails can still be seen today drooping down from the cut in the rocks made for the wharf's construction a century-and-a-half ago.
(Photo courtesy Trinidad Museum Society.)

At the far end of the wharf was a large rotating boom for hoisting cargo. Anyone familiar with the motion of the waves in this area can appreciate how hazardous conditions must have been for those who loaded and unloaded the boats. This photo was taken in 1893, not long before the wharf was abandoned.
(Photo by A. W. Ericson, courtesy Humboldt State University Library-Palmquist Collection.)

Another Ericson image (circa 1894), likely taken from the Occidental Hotel at the foot of Galindo Street.
(Photo courtesy Trinidad Museum Society.)

Taken from the same vantage point a few years later. Note that a section of the old wharf has collapsed, indicating it had finally fallen into disuse.
(Photo courtesy Trinidad Museum Society.)

The last known photographic image of the ruined wharf, circa 1910. It's amazing that such a precariously-placed structure endured for more than a half-century.