A sunken steamship involved in one of San Francisco's worst maritime disasters was discovered at the bottom of San Francisco Bay, a silent reminder of a historic calamity that rocked a city steeped in xenophobia and racial hatred.

The wreckage of the 202-foot-long passenger ship, the City of Chester, was found sitting upright in the shipping channel near the Golden Gate Bridge, a giant gash still visible in its port-side bow, scientists and historians with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said Wednesday.

The Chester sank after being hit by the ocean liner Oceanic in 1888, taking 16 people down with her, the second-deadliest maritime disaster in San Francisco history....

The calamity was notorious not just because of the deaths, but also because the ship that hit the City of Chester had 74 Chinese crewmen and 1,062 Chinese steerage passengers. The accident happened at a time when xenophobic fears of a "yellow peril" were at a peak in San Francisco, and five years after President Chester Arthur signed the Chinese Exclusion Act.