Here's something to think about the next time you're dodging e-scooters on your way down Market Street: you're walking on top of a graveyard of Gold Rush-era ships.

Dozens of vessels — abandoned by crews who caught gold fever in 1849 — sit entombed beneath the streets and buildings of San Francisco's Financial District. When the city exploded in population during the Gold Rush, the shoreline of Yerba Buena Cove was rapidly filled in to create new real estate. Ships that had been left to rot at anchor were simply buried where they sat, becoming the literal foundation of modern-day San Francisco.

We're not talking about a plank or two. Full hulls are down there. One Bay Area commuter pointed out that "you go right through the hulls of two on either side of Market and Beale when you take the downtown metro" — believed to be the Byron and the Callao. Let that sink in: your Muni commute takes you through a 170-year-old ship.

The history gets even better. The Niantic — one of the most famous buried ships, interred near the Transamerica Pyramid around Clay and Montgomery — lent its name to the tech company behind Pokémon Go. As one local history buff noted, "Parts of the ship are still buried underground next to the Transamerica building," and the Maritime Museum has artifacts from the vessel on display. Meanwhile, the Old Ship Saloon near the Embarcadero claims the title of the oldest pub in San Francisco, built directly on top of the vessel where it originally operated before the bay was filled in.

There's a libertarian parable in here if you squint. In the 1850s, San Francisco had a housing crisis, so private citizens and entrepreneurs literally created new land and built on it — no environmental impact reports, no 15-year permitting process, no Board of Supervisors hearings. Was it chaotic? Absolutely. Did the city get built? Spectacularly so.

We're not suggesting we start filling in the bay again. But it's worth remembering that the ground beneath our feet was built by people who didn't wait for government permission to solve problems. San Francisco's founders — sometimes literally standing on the decks of abandoned ships — just got it done.

Next time you grab a drink at the Old Ship Saloon, raise a glass to the city's wildest builders. They're right beneath your feet.