Hunters Point got its name from two brothers, Robert and Phillip Hunter, who came to San Francisco from a distinguished East Coast family during the gold rush. They were real estate agents selling lots in the Bayview Hunters Point for land speculators Dr. John Townsend and Corneille de Boom. Townsend and de Boom had brokered a deal with prominent landowner Jose Cornelia Bernal to develop his estate, then known as Potrero Viejo, into lots, sell them, and then split the proceeds. But most of the lots did not sell. The area was deemed undesirable, as there was no convenient way to get to the downtown area three miles away. It wasn't until the building of the dry dock during the late 1930s that Hunters Point and the adjacent Bayview neighborhoods began attracting attention. Bethlehem Steel Company bought the dry dock, where some of the best ships were built and repaired. In addition to being recognized in the ship industry, Bayview Hunters Point was known as a rich farmland cultivating produce and livestock for the city's consumption.