Located along the San Joaquin River, Stockton has a rich maritime history dating back to the Gold Rush of the 1800s.

Traders and supply ships would travel the river to supply crews in the gold fields and connect to San Francisco Bay, with Stockton serving as a critical inland port. The city would become a shipbuilding powerhouse during World War II with 10 shipyards operating day and night, and today its port serves a variety of domestic and international trade.

For over a decade a dedicated group of former sailors, history enthusiasts and community members have been working to preserve and showcase Stockton’s connection to the water, called the Stockton Maritime Museum.

And at the project’s heart is a small wooden Navy ship called the USS Lucid.

David Rajkovich is the President of the Stockton Maritime Museum. He told Insight Host Vicki Gonzalez his passion for maritime history dates back to his childhood. 

“My father was a sailor in World War II, as a kid I hung out with veterans,” Rajkovich said. “I’m interested in history and local industrial history, and it just kind of fell in my lap.”

Stockton Maritime Museum President David Rajkovich (right) accepts the original quarterdeck bell from USS Lucid veteran Doug Traylor (left).Courtesy of Stockton Maritime Museum

The museum was founded in 2011 when the organization acquired the Lucid, and established an agreement with the San Joaquin County Office of Education to restore it as a museum ship. Preservation work began the next year.

Rajkovich said the Lucid is the last ship of its kind in the world available for preservation. “They were built at 10 different shipyards around the country… and of the thousands of vessels, boats and craft that were built in Stockton over the years, this was the largest Navy-type vessel built [there],” Rajkovich said.

In addition to the Lucid, the Stockton Maritime Museum will also include a reproduction of the historic Colberg Boat Works, which built ships from the 1890s to the 1990s,. and a variety of other maritime artifacts.

The Lucid’s journey

The USS Lucid was laid down by the Higgins Shipyard in New Orleans in 1953 and commissioned two years later. While the Lucid was not built in the Central Valley three of her identical sister ships — Dynamic, Engage and Embattle — were built at the Colberg Boat Works.  

The ships formed the U.S. Navy’s Aggressive-class of oceangoing minesweepers, wooden-hulled ships meant to detect and defeat naval mines.”It was non-magnetic, and that was one of the key drivers of an influence mine,” Rajkovich explained.

“The ships were designed as a very shallow draft ship so it wouldn’t change the water pressure going over a mine… and it had variable pitch propellers because the mines were designed to listen to the propellers and they could identify the ship.”

The Aggressive-class numbered over 50 ships and served not only the United States, but also the navies of Belgium, the Philippines, Taiwan, the Netherlands, Spain and other countries for decades. The last ship to leave service, the Yung Yang of the Republic of China Navy, was decommissioned in July 2025 after 71 years. It was formerly the USS Implicit, the last Aggressive-class ship to be decommissioned by the U.S. Navy in September 1994.

USS Lucid serving in the U.S. Navy in the 1950s.Courtesy of Naval History and Heritage Command

According to Navy records USS Lucid served the United States for 23 years. The minesweeper sailed to the Pacific after conducting her shakedown cruise and spent 13 months doing mine warfare exercises. 

From 1956-1963 the Lucid sailed on four western Pacific tours, spending time with the U.S. Navy’s Seventh Fleet and conducting goodwill programs in various countries.

In 1965 the Lucid sailed for the Philippines to participate in Operation Market Time off the Vietnamese coast, working to stop the flow of materials and personnel into North Vietnam. The Navy says the Lucid boarded 186 junks and other ships. 

After returning to California for overhauls in 1966-1967, USS Lucid returned to Southeast Asia to rejoin Operation Market Time, conducting search and surveillance operations and sweeping South Vietnamese harbors for mines. She was disposed of by Navy sale in 1976, passing through several owners before ending up in Stockton.

Restoring a veteran

Rajkovich said the process of bringing the Lucid back to its former glory has been extensive.

“It was stripped,” he said, explaining that the ship was previously owned by scrappers in the Delta. “All the metal on it was bronze, brass, stainless steel or monel [a nickel-copper alloy]… very expensive metals.”

Rajkovich said the museum’s crew includes approximately 40 active volunteers. He said they have been rebuilding equipment for the Lucid, or searching across the country to find parts to bring the ship back to how it looked during its naval service. 

Volunteers Tristan Ost (left) and Mike Guddal (right) connect wiring for the bilge pump float switch aboard the USS Lucid.Courtesy of Stockton Maritime Museum

A big source of those parts is decommissioned Navy ships. “They allow us to go up to shipyards,” Rajkovich said. “We go to the one in Bremerton, Wa. once a year and remove parts from ships that are scheduled to be scrapped or sunk as targets.”

“There’s a lot of bits and pieces on those, standard things like plumbing fixtures and light fixtures… that are pretty common across all classes of Navy ships, but we had none of that.”

When it comes to funding the restoration, Rajkovich said it has largely been possible thanks to public support. “We’ve received no public funding until just this year for our new relocation project, so this has been funded by sailors who sailed on these [ships] and their children and grandchildren,” he said.

Rajkovich said the ship is currently over 80% restored. The USS Lucid is currently berthed at the San Joaquin Building Futures Academy, but once its fully preserved the ship will be moved to a waterfront area near Weber Point in downtown Stockton.

A rendering of the restored USS Lucid along the waterfront in downtown Stockton.Courtesy of Stockton Maritime Museum

In the meantime, visitors can still sign up to see the historic minesweeper during an open house tour, with the next one taking place Oct. 11. The organization is also accepting volunteers and donations to help continue their work.

Rajkovich said despite the challenges, restoring the Lucid has been a point of great satisfaction, and even attracted national attention. “Last year we won the Excellence Award from the Naval History and Heritage Command,” he said, referring to a naval department tasked with preserving the service’s history. 

“Of all the ships in the country, we won this “E for Excellence” award… we’re quite proud of that.”