When it was built in 1937, Treasure Island was considered to be one of the largest man-made islands in the world. Located in the middle of San Francisco Bay, the 400-acre island was constructed out of dredged bay mud in a remarkable feat of Depression-era civil engineering by the US Army Corps of Engineers. Its alluring name is an allusion to the fabled remnants of the California Gold Rush found in the ocean sediment that formed the island.

This collection of essays tells the story of San Francisco's Treasure Island--an artificial, disconnected island that has paradoxically been...