Timeline San Francisco to 1892
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SF Landmarks: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_San_Francisco_Designated_Landmarks
The city occupies 47.355 sq. miles with a city
limit that extends 32 miles out to sea. SF includes the federal
property
of the 7 rocky Farallon Islands.
(SFC, 5/19/96,Mag, p.11)(Hem., 5/97, p.26)(SFC, 9/11/99, p.A11)
The original Bay Area and coast dwellers were the Miwok and
Ohlone
Indians. There were 4 main native tribes: the Coast Miwoks in Marin,
the
Wintuns on the northern shore of San Pablo Bay, the Yokuts south of the
Carquinez Strait, and the Costanoans along the Peninsula.
(SFC, 5/19/96,City Guide, p.7)(SFEC, 3/1/98, p.W34)
There are 43 named hills in SF. Mount Davidson is the highest
at 938 ft.
(SFEC, 3/8/98, p.W30)
35,000BP About this time, or more
recently, a catastrophic earthquake carved out the Golden Gate and the
waters of the Pacific rushed into the exposed plain to form the SF Bay.
(SFEC, 2/9/97, p.W4)
25000BC San Francisco and the Bay Area were home to
mammoths indicating cold temperatures of an Ice Age. In 1934 a 10-pound
mammoth tooth from this time was found by engineers working on the new
Bay Bridge.
(SSFC, 1/15/09, DB p.43)
1543 Apr 14, Bartoleme Ferrelo
returned to Spain after discovering a large bay in the New World (San
Francisco).
(HN, 4/14/99)
1579 Jun 17, Sir Francis Drake
sailed into San Francisco Bay and proclaimed English sovereignty over
New Albion (California). Some claim that Sir Francis Drake sailed into
the SF Bay. Sir Francis Drake claimed San Francisco Bay for England. It
may have been Drake’s Bay or Bolinas Lagoon.
(TL-MB, 1988, p.22)(SFEC, 2/9/97, p.W4)(HN,
6/17/98)(SFEC, 8/23/98, p.T6)
1769 Mar, Captain Portola set out
with a group of soldiers, priests, Christian Native Americans and
muleteers. Their intention was to go as far as Monterey Bay but they
passed it. Gaspar de Portola led the first European land
expedition to sight the San Francisco Bay from land. Captain Portola
had been appointed governor of Baja and Alta California and sent on an
expedition to explore and replace the Jesuits with Franciscans in the
Baja missions and start new Franciscan missions in Alta.
(SFC, 5/19/96,City Guide, p.16) (Park,
Spring/95)(SFC, 5/19/96,City Guide, p.16)
1769 Oct, Captain Portola and his
party camped at what is now Pacifica. Portola sent Sergeant Jose Ortega
out to survey what was ahead.
(SFC, 5/19/96,City Guide, p.16)
1769 Nov 1-1769 Nov 3, Sgt. Jose
Francisco Ortega with his scouting party first looked upon SF Bay from
the vicinity of Point Lobos.
(SFEC, 2/9/97, p.W4)
1769 Nov 4, Portola received
reports of a large bay ahead and went to see for himself. He crossed
Sweeney Ridge in San Mateo County and saw the bay. Francisco de Ulloa
was a navigator and member of the party.
(SFC, 5/19/96,City Guide, p.16)(SFEC, 9/21/97, p.C7)
1772 After Father Serra
established a mission in Monterey, Pedro Fages and Father Juan Crespi
set out to explore the SF Bay by land.
(SFEC, 3/1/98, p.W34)
1774 Fernando Rivera and 4
soldiers climbed San Bruno Mountain and watched the sun rise over the
bay.
(GTP, 1973, p.126)
1774 Juan Bautista de Anza was the
first non-native to cross the Sierra to scout the Bay Area.
(SFEC, 3/1/98, p.W34)
1775 Aug 5, Lieutenant Juan Manuel
de Ayala was the first European explorer to sail through the Golden
Gate of California. He anchored at Angel Island and waited for the
overland expedition of Captain Juan Bautista de Anza. Isla de los
Angeles, or Angel Island, was one of the first landforms named by the
Spanish when they entered SF Bay. The Spanish fregata, Punta de San
Carlos, was the first sailing vessel to enter the San Francisco Bay
while on a voyage of exploration.
(SFC, 5/19/96,City Guide, p.16)(CAS, 1996,
p.19)(SFEC, 2/9/97, p.W4)(SFL)
1775 Juan Bautista Anza, a
40-year-old Mexican captain, led 240 soldiers, priests and settlers to
Monterey. Jose Manuel Valencia was one of the soldiers. His son,
Candelario Valencia, later served in the military at the Presidio and
owned a ranch in Lafayette and property next to Mission Dolores.
(SFEC, 9/21/97, p.C7)
1775 Captain Bruno Heceta led a
group of explorers along the slopes of San Bruno Mountain to the shores
of Lake Merced. He most likely named the mountain.
(GTP, 1973, p.124)
1776 Mar, Captain Juan Bautista de
Anza, Lt. Jose Moraga, and Franciscan priest Pedro Font arrived at the
tip of San Francisco. De Anza planted a cross at what is now Fort
Point. They searched inland for a more hospitable area and found a site
they called Laguna de los Dolores or the Friday of Sorrows since the
day was Friday before Palm Sunday. Anza became known as the “father of
SF.” Mission Dolores was founded by Father Francisco Palou and Father
Pedro Cambon. Rancho San Pedro, near what is now Pacifica, served as
the agricultural center.
(SFC, 5/19/96,City Guide, p.16)(SFEC, 9/21/97,
p.C7)(SFEC, 3/1/98, p.W34)
1776 Jun 26, The St. Francis of
Assisi Church, later Mission Dolores, was founded by Father Francisco
Palleu beside the Arroyo de Nuestra Senora de los Dolores (Stream of
Our lady of Sorrows) on native Yelamu territory.
(SFEC, 3/12/00, p.T5)(OAH, 2/05, p.A1)(SFL)
1776 June 29, Settlers who had
been waiting in Monterey headed north and gathered for Mass under a
crude shelter at the new mission in San Francisco. The mission
dedication ceremony with fireworks and tolling bells scared the local
Costanoan Indians.
(SFC, 5/19/96,City Guide, p.16)(SFEC, 3/12/00, p.T5)
1776 Sep 17, The Presidio of SF
formed as a Spanish fort. The Spanish built the Presidio on the hill
where the Golden Gate Bridge now meets San Francisco.
(WSJ, 9/17/96, p.A12)(MC, 9/17/01)(SFL)
1776 Oct 9, A group of Spanish
missionaries settled in present-day San Francisco. The formal
dedication of Mission San Francisco de Asis was made.
(SFC, 5/19/96,City Guide, p.16)(AP, 10/9/97)
1776 Don Marcos Briones came to
San Francisco. His daughter, Juana Briones, was born in Santa Cruz in
1802.
(SFEC, 5/26/97, p.A11)
1790 A permanent Spanish mission
building was built at the corner of what later became 16th and Dolores
streets.
(SFC, 1/29/04, p.A8)(SFL)
1792 Englishman George Vancouver
sailed into the Bay on his ship Discovery. He explored the Santa Clara
Valley.
(SFEC, 3/1/98, p.W34)
1794 Rancho San Pedro was
abandoned and Rancho San Mateo was established by the local priests as
the farming center.
(SFEC, 3/1/98, p.W34)
1795 Spring, Some 300 Indians fled
Mission Dolores in San Francisco following a year of food shortages and
disease that killed over 200. They sought refuge in the East Bay hills
and Napa.
(SFC, 9/26/03, p.D15)(SFL)
1796 A new altar piece was
installed at Mission Dolores. It covered old murals painted by the
native Indians. In 2004 images of the murals were projected on the
rotunda of the Mission Dolores Basilica.
(SFC, 1/29/04, p.A8)
1802-1889 Juana Briones Y Tapia de Miranda was born
in Santa Cruz. She was a battered wife and became the first California
woman to get a divorce. She was the first to settle on Powell St. in
what is now North Beach and worked as a homeopathic doctor. In 1989 the
Women’s Heritage Museum persuaded the state to authorize a plaque in
her honor to be set in Washington Square.
(SFEC, 5/26/97, p.A11)(SFC,11/17/97, p.A1,21)(SFL)
1806 Apr, Nicolai Rezanov (42), a
director of the Russian-American Co., arrived in SF aboard the Juno. He
had proposed a California outpost to serve the Russian colonies in
Alaska and sailed south to establish a settlement on the Columbia River
but could not land there due to difficult seas. He sailed south to the
Presidio at Monterey and negotiated a trade deal with Commander Jose
Arguello. He also fell in love with Concepcion Arguello (d.1857), the
daughter of Commander Arguello, and proposed marriage. He died that
winter while crossing Siberia.
(SFEC, 3/23/97, p.T5)(SFC, 2/18/06, p.A1)
1806 May 21, Nicolai Rezanov
(1764-1806), a director of the Russian-American Co., departed SF for
Sitka, Alaska. He died that winter while crossing Siberia.
(SFEC, 3/23/97, p.T5)(SFC, 2/18/06, p.A1)
1808 The first recorded earthquake
occurred.
(SFEC, 3/8/98, p.W30)
1810 Mexico revolted and the
Spanish settlements began to fall apart. Under Mexican rule the
missions were secularized and the huge land holdings were broken up.
(SFC, 5/19/96,City Guide, p.16)
1814 Jose Dario Arguello,
Spanish-born commander of the Presidio, served as the governor of Alta
California. He was later buried at Mission Dolores.
(SFEC, 9/21/97, p.C7)
1820 Juana Briones (18) married
Apolinario Miranda, a cavalryman at the SF presidio.
(SFC, 11/14/03, p.I24)
1822 William A. Richardson (27)
came to SF as first mate aboard the British whaler Orion. He built the
first home in SF in what became Chinatown on Grant St. between Clay and
Washington.
(SFC, 3/27/99, p.A23)
1822-1825 Luis Antonio Arguello, son of Jose Dario,
served as the first native-born governor of Alta California.
(SFEC, 9/21/97, p.C7)
1830s Ignacio Pacheco retired as a
customs officer in San Francisco's Presidio and received a land grant
in Sonoma County. He thought it unsuitable for agriculture and traded
it for a 7,776 acre plot in Marin County. Much of it later became
Hamilton air Force Base.
(SFC, 1/15/04, p.D4)
1833 The pueblo of SF was
established as a municipality and construction of homes picked up.
(SFEC, 3/1/98, p.W34)
1834 Orders to secularize the
California missions arrived from Mexico as did General Mariano Vallejo
to Mission San Francisco Solano de Sonoma. General Vallejo’s job was to
establish a town and so Sonoma was designed around a central plaza.
This ended mission ownership by the Franciscans.
(WCG, p.58)(SFEC, 3/1/98, p.W34)
1834 Mexican maps of this year
identified the Islais Creek on the southeast side of SF. It was named
after Los Islais, the hollyleaf cherry, a favorite Ohlone Indian food.
(SFC, 11/30/96, p.A21)(SFL)
1834 Jose Bernal owned Rancho
Rincon de Las Salinas y Potrero. It included the land that later became
known as Hunter’s Point. La Punta de Conca (seashell point) was later
purchased by Robert and Philip Hunter who arrived during the gold rush
and bought the land to develop a town.
(SSCM, 7/21/02, p.16)(SFL)
1835 William A. Richardson was
named captain of the port of SF.
(SFC, 3/27/99, p.A23)
1835 The San Francisco Bar Pilots
company was formed.
(SSFC, 4/3/06, p.G5)
1835 Richard Henry Dana, writer,
arrived in SF aboard the brig Pilgrim.
(SFEC, 3/1/98, p.W34)
c1835 The first street in SF was
named Dupont St. and is now known as Grant Ave.
(SFEC, 3/8/98, p.W30)(SFL)
1835-1851 Malcolm E. Barker edited the 1994 book “San
Francisco Memoirs: Eyewitness Accounts of the Birth of a City” that
covered this period. It was the first of a planned trilogy.
(SFC, 11/22/96, p.C9)
1836 Jacob Leese reached Yerba
Buena and established a mercantile business near what is now Montgomery
St. He married a daughter of Gen’l. Vallejo and their daughter, Rosalie
Leese, was the first non-native born in Yerba Buena.
(SFEC, 3/1/98, p.W34)(SFL)
1838 A major earthquake opened a
huge fissure from SF to Santa Clara.
(SFEC, 3/1/98, p.W34)
1839 Jean Vioget laid out the 1st
plan of Yerba Buena (San Francisco) and showed the later Union Square
site as a future park.
(SSFC, 7/21/02, p.F2)(SFL)
1839 The Bernal Heights area of
SF, Ca., began to be developed as part of a Mexican land grant
belonging to Don Jose Cornelio Bernal.
(SFC, 6/29/06, 96 Hours p.41)(SFL)
1840 Jacob Leese sold his business
to the Hudson Bay Company.
(SFEC, 3/1/98, p.W34)
1841 Capt. William A. Richardson
moved to Sausalito from SF after the Mexican government gave him a
19,571-acre land grant from the Marin headlands to Stinson Beach. There
he established Rancho del Sausalito.
(SFC, 3/27/99, p.A23)
1841 William A. Leidesdorff,
originally from the Virgin Islands, arrived in San Francisco. He became
a prominent businessman, built the city’s first hotel, became a member
of the first SF City Council and served as the city’s first treasurer.
(SFC, 2/16/09, p.B2)
1842 Union Square was created as
one of the first 2 SF parks.
(SFC, 7/24/97, p.A1)(SFL)
1842-1846 The Sanchez Adobe was constructed in
Pacifica by Francisco Sanchez, owner of the Rancho San Pedro and former
alcalde of SF. He led volunteer forces against the US in the Battle of
Santa Clara.
(SMMB)
1844 Juana Briones purchased a
4,400 acre rancho that later covered parts of Los Altos, Los Altos
Hills and Palo Alto. She acquired her funds renting rooms and selling
food in SF. In 1850 she began a 12-year legal battle to retain her
property. She won title to her property in the US Supreme Court.
(SFC, 11/14/03, p.I24)
1846 Jun 13, Jose de Jesus Noe,
owner of a 4,000-acre ranch in the center of Yerba Buena, was the last,
Mexican alcalde, chief magistrate under Mexican rule. He became a city
official when the Americans took over and is buried in Mission Dolores.
(SFEC, 9/21/97, p.C7)(SFC, 5/26/00, Wb p.8)(SFL)
1846 Jun 14, A group of 33 men
rode into the Mexican garrison town of Sonoma and raised the California
Bear Flag.
(SFC, 6/13/96, p.A17)
1846 Jul 1, Kit Carson helped
Capt. John Fremont scale the walls on the site of Fort Point to claim
the Presidio for the US.
(SFEC, 3/8/98, p.W30)(SFL)
1846 Jul 9, Captain J.B.
Montgomery raised the American flag over San Francisco. Montgomery
claimed Yerba Buena (SF) for the US.
(SFEC, 3/1/98,
p.W36)(www.bearflagmuseum.org/History.html)
1846 Jul 31, San Francisco, known
as Yerba Buena, had only 459 residents, and with the arrival of Sam
Brannan and 230 Mormons became known as a Mormon town. [see 1848]
Printer Brannan later published the first SF newspaper, the California
star.
(SFC, 4/9/96, A-7)(SFEC, 7/21/96, DB p.29)
1846 Aug 15, Walter Colton, the
American alcalde of Monterey, and Robert Semple a one-time
frontier doctor, began printing The Californian on an old press with
Spanish type in Monterey. It was the state’s first weekly.
(PI, 8/8/98, p.5)
1846 Dec, The town of Francesca
(now Benicia) planned to change its name to San Francisco. William A.
Bartlett, the first American alcalde, or mayor of Yerba Buena, led the
town council to beat Francesca and approve a name change to San
Francisco.
(SFC, 1/30/97, p.A15)
1846 Commander John Montgomery
sent a 70-man detachment from the USS Portsmouth ashore at Yerba Buena
and raised the American flag.
(SFC, 5/7/97, p.A15)(SFEC, 1/4/98, Z1p.4)
1846 Navy Lt. Washington Bartlett
became the first American mayor of Yerba Buena, renamed to San
Francisco in 1847.
(SFC, 5/7/97, p.A1)
1846 Brigham Young, Joseph Smith’s
successor, led the Mormons overland to the Great Salt Lake Valley.
Mormon pioneer Sam Brannan gathered some 250 Mormons aboard the ship,
Brooklyn, and sailed from New York to San Francisco.
(SFC, 4/9/96, A-7)
1846 The sons of Francisco de
Haro, the first chief magistrate of Yerba Buena, were murdered by
Americans under the command of Kit Carson.
(SFEC, 9/21/97, p.C7)
1847 Jan 3, California town of
Yerba Buena was renamed to San Francisco. [see Jan 30]
(MC, 1/3/02)
1847 Jan 7, The California Star in
Yerba Buena was begun by 2 men a couple of months after the Monterey
Californian on the 2nd floor of a mule-powered grist mill on what is
now Clay St. It was started by Sam Brannan and was edited by Dr. Elbert
P. Jones.
(SFEC, 3/8/98, BR p.6)(PI, 8/8/98, p.5)
1847 Jan 30, The California Star
published the official name change of Yerba Buena to San Francisco on
this day. Mayor Washington Bartlett had the town council approve the
change. [see Jan 3]
(SFC, 1/30/97, p.A15)(SFC, 1/25/02, p.G6)
1847 Apr, A local census counted
462 residents living in tents, shanties and adobe huts.
(SFC, 1/30/97, p.A15)
1847 Jul 24, The Mormons arrived
in the Salt Lake Valley.
(SFEC, 4/6/97, p.A4)
1847 Aug 2, William A. Leidesdorff
launched the first steam boat in San Francisco Bay.
(HN, 8/2/98)
1847 Aug, Construction of the
first 20 homes in Benicia began. The new city was named “Francisco”
after Vallejo’s wife, but residents of Yerba Buena changed the name to
San Francisco and Robert Semple renamed his town to “Benicia” after
Mrs. Vallejo’s middle name.
(SFEC, 3/1/98, p.W26)
1847 Dec 25, The California Star
complained that “low gambling dens” harbored many escaped fugitives,
and that street turmoils were almost a daily occurrence.
(SFC, 11/12/04, p.E15)
1847 Jasper O’Farrell,
surveyor-general of Northern California, laid out the streets of San
Francisco. He designated the sand dune called O’Farrel’s Mountain as a
public square (later Union Square).
(SFEC, 2/9/97, p.W4)(SSFC, 7/21/02, p.F2)(SFL)
1847 Stern Grove was first settled
by the Greene family. Because of many property disputes, the family
built a fort surrounded by eucalyptus trees over the land. Charlotte
Green was the original owner. Her great-granddaughter, Roberta Hewson
Graves (d.1992), was later hailed as “the most beautiful girl in the
world.” The original owners of Stern Grove were cattle baron Jefferson
James and Countess Muysson-Van Vliet
(SFC, 5/19/96,City Guide, p.6)(SFC, 2/18/98,
p.A18)(SFC, 2/24/98, p.A22)(SFL)
1847 Just before the discovery of
gold SF had about 800 residents living in some 160 frame structures
amid older adobe buildings. [see Apr, 1847]
(SFEC, 7/11/99, BR p.1)
1847-1848 George Hyde served as the 3rd American
mayor of SF.
(SFC, 9/23/99, p.A24)
1848 Jan 24, Gold was discovered
in at Sutter’s Mill in Coloma and the lure of wealth brought many
newcomers to the port of San Francisco. John Marshall, while inspecting
the construction of a mill on the American River, being built for Capt.
John Sutter, spotted a gold nugget. Much of the present day Financial
District east of Montgomery was network of wharves. The area was later
solidified with landfill and used for skyscrapers.
(HFA,'96,p.22)(SFC, 5/19/96,City Guide, p.16)(SFEC,
11/3/96, DB p.71)(SFC, 1/25/97, p.A17)(SFEC, 7/6/97, p.T3)(SFEC,
1/4/98, Z1p.4)
1848 Feb 2, The 1st ship load of
Chinese arrived in SF.
(MC, 2/2/02)
1848 Apr 1, The SF-based
California Star reported the discovery of a rich silver vein in San
Jose valley. The discovery of rich beds of copper were also reported
near Clear Lake.
(SFC, 12/10/04, p.E4)
1848 Apr 22, The SF-based
California Star reported the discovery of a rich gold mine towards the
head of the American Fork in the Sacramento Valley.
(SFC, 12/10/04, p.E4)
1848 Apr, The first SF American
public school opened. Soon thereafter all the trustees took off for the
gold fields.
(SFEC, 1/11/98, DB p.40)
1848 May 12, Sam Brannan, an elder
of the Mormon Church in SF, announced the discovery of gold on the
American River. He had just opened a store near the goldfields stocked
with shovels and mining tools. He and members of the Mormon battalion
were the first to profit in San Francisco from the Gold Rush.
(SFC, 4/9/96, A-7)(SFEC, 1/4/98, Z1p.4)(SFEC,
6/21/98, Z1 p.4)
1848 May 20, The California Star
reported that a fleet of launches had left the SF bound up the
Sacramento River due to “Gold Fever.”
(SFC, 12/10/04, p.E4)
1848 May 27, The SF-based
California Star complained that everybody in the state was under the
spell of gold fever.
(SFC, 12/10/04, p.E4)
1848 May 29, The Californian
newspaper complained that everybody in the state was under the spell of
gold fever and announced suspension of publication because the staff
was heading out to participate. The Californian and the California Star
were based in SF.
(SFEC, 1/11/98, DB p.40)(SFEC, 6/21/98, Z1 p.1)(PI,
8/8/98, p.5)
1848 Jun 14, The California Star
newspaper in SF locked its doors due to the gold strike and lack of
working men.
(PI, 8/8/98, p.5)(SFC, 12/17/04, p.E6)
1848 Oct 29, Rev. Dwight Hunt and
his wife, Mary, arrived in SF from Hawaii and began holding
nondenominational services at the Old School House on Portsmouth Square.
(SFC, 7/24/99, p.A17)(SFL)
1848 Nov 9, The first U.S. Post
Office in California opened in San Francisco at Clay and Pike streets.
At that time there were only about 15,000 European settlers living in
the state.
(HN, 11/9/98)(SFL)
1848 Nov, The Californian and the
California Star merged and began publishing as The Star and Californian.
(PI, 8/8/98, p.5)
1848 The City Council passed a
resolution regarding gambling and heavy fines were assessed on parties
arrested for gambling. The resolution was soon repealed.
(GTP, 1973, p.53)
1848 William Alexander
Leidesdorff, ship captain, merchant and the first treasurer of SF,
died. He was half Dutch and half black and was buried inside
Mission Dolores. He started the City Hotel, the 1st hotel in SF at
Kearny and Clay.
(SFC, 5/19/98, p.B8)(SFC, 1/31/02, p.D1)(SFL)
1849 Jan, The Star and Californian
newspaper changed its name to the Alta California.
(PI, 8/8/98, p.5)
1849 Feb 28, The steamer
California, sounding the first steamship whistle on the SF Bay, arrived
in SF with San Francisco postmaster John W. Geary on board carrying
mail for the Pacific coast. Steamboat service began from Panama City to
SF. Pacific Mail Steamship Co. sent the side-wheel steamship California
to SF with American gold-seekers and 50 Peruvian miners. Also onboard
were preacher Osgood C. Wheeler (32) and his wife Elizabeth.
(SSFC, 3/1/09, DB
p.50)(www.maritimeheritage.org/PassLists/ca022849.htm)(AP,
2/28/98)(SFEC, 1/11/98, DB p.40)
1849 Mar, Albert Williams, a
Protestant church pioneer, disembarked from the Oregon, one of the
first steamships to arrive in the Gold Rush.
(SFC, 5/20/99, p.A19)
1849 Aug 5, The first sanctuary of
the First Baptist Church was built on the north side of Washington St.
near Stockton St. under the direction of Osgood C. Wheeler.
(SFC, 11/18/99, p.A22)(SFL)
1849 May 20, Albert Williams
presented a petition to establish the First Presbyterian Church
following services at the Public School House on Portsmouth Square.
Services began in the summer in a tent purchased for $200.
(SFC, 5/20/99, p.A19)(SFL)
1849 Jun 4, Eighteen men from the
USS Ohio deserted their posts for the gold mines.
(SFEC, 1/11/98, DB p.41)
1849 Jun 17, Rev. John Brouillet,
vicar general of the diocese of Walla Walla, and Rev. Anthony Langlois,
also from the Oregon territory, opened St. Francis Church with a Mass.
(SFC, 10/4/99, p.A21)
1849 Jul 5, The sailing ship
Niantic arrived in SF, Ca, and anchored in Yerba Buena Cove. The ship’s
owners soon converted her to a storage and auction house for imported
goods and built a hotel on her deck.
(SFC, 5/9/03, p.E5)(SFC, 2/4/05, p.E16)
1849 Jul 28, Memmon became the 1st
clipper to reach SF after 120 days out of NY.
(SC, 7/28/02)
1849 Jul 29, Rev. Dwight Hunt and
10 parishioners organized the First Congregational Church of SF based
in form on the Evangelical Churches of New England. It began as a
wooden structure on Jackson St. between Stockton and Powell. It moved
to Mason and Post in 1872.
(SFC, 7/24/99, p.A17)(SFC, 4/23/01, p.A14)(SFL)
1849 Jul, Rev. Flavel S. Mines,
Episcopal priest, opened the doors of the Holy Trinity Church.
(SFC, 7/15/99, p.A19)
1849 Jul, A Chilean tent community
at the foot of Telegraph Hill, composed of some 7,00 miners, was
assaulted by the lawless Society of Hounds street gang. Popular justice
brought 9 Hound members to court and sentenced them to a decade of hard
labor. The Chilecito community stayed vibrant throughout the 1860s.
(SSFC, 1/5/03, p.A24)
1849 Aug 23, The first mail
service arrived at Benicia, Sacramento and San Jose.
(SFEC, 1/11/98, DB p.41)
1849 Oct, The Boudin Sourdough
Bakery was founded in San Francisco by French immigrant Isador Boudin
during the Gold Rush. Boudin first used ordinary sourdough to bake a
French-style bread. In 1941 the firm was bought by Steven Giraudo. By
1997 the 10th and Geary facility was a $500 million operation selling
bread under the Parisian, Colombo and other labels.
(SFEC, 1/4/98, Z1p.4)(SFC, 10/9/99, p.A1)(SFC,
5/10/05, p.D1)(SFL)
1849 Oct, German immigrants
arrived in SF and Rev. Frederick Mooshake soon set up at the Second
Congregational Church on Sutter between Stockton and Grant and took
over when the Congregationalists went bankrupt.
(SFC, 10/16/99, p.A19)(SFL)
1849 Nov 13, Voters approved a
state constitution.
(SFEC, 1/11/98, DB p.41)
1849 Dec 9, The first SF fire
engine arrived from the East Coast.
(SFEC, 1/11/98, DB p.41)
1849 Dec 24, A fire began on the
eastern side of Portsmouth Square. It burned a whole block and spread
down Washington St. to the edge of the bay at Montgomery. The damage in
1999 money was about $17 million.
(SFC, 12/24/99, p.A23,24)(SFL)
1849 Dec, A rival Episcopal
congregation, named Grace Church, opened a block away from Holy Trinity
with Belgian priest Rev. John Ver Mehr presiding.
(SFC, 7/15/99, p.A19)
1849 The first church at the site
of St. Francis of Assisi in North Beach was built by Catholics who
disliked the 3.5 mile walk to Mission Dolores.
(SFEC, 3/2/97, z1 p.6)(SFL)
1849 The Jewish Congregation
Sherith Israel was founded in SF.
(SFC, 3/12/05, p.E1)
1849 The Tadich Grill opened. It
began as the new World Coffee Stand on the edge of what is now
Commercial St.
(Hem., 5/97, p.24)(SFC, 10/8/97, Z1 p.7)(SFL)
1849 The James Clair Flood, a
former saloon keeper from NY arrived in SF and made a fortune in
the 1859 Nevada Comstock silver mine.
(SFEC, 7/12/98, p.B12)(SFC, 7/4/03, p.E1)
1849 Lazard Freres with a brother
and cousin moved their New Orleans dry goods company to San Francisco.
(SFC, 12/11/96, p.D1)(WSJ, 6/7/99, p.C1)
1849 Englishman George Gordon
arrived in SF. He pursued ventures as a lumber dealer, builder of
wharves, head of an iron foundry and a sugar refinery.
(SFC, 7/21/00, p.WBb3)
1849 Joshua Norton, a financier
from the Cape of Good Hope, arrived in San Francisco with $40,000 from
trade deals in Africa and South America. Within five years he amassed
$250,000 and invested it all in rice with the hope of cornering the
market. His scheme failed when three ships arrived from the Orient
loaded with rice.
(HFA, '96, p.64)
1849 Oscar Backus (19) arrived in
SF aboard the steamer California, believed to be the first steam
powered ship to pass through the Golden Gate. He brought 750 copies of
a New York newspaper that he’d bought for $5 and sold them for $1
apiece. He then began a successful career in mining and plumbing.
(SFC, 7/3/97, p.A24)
1849 The first stage coach line
from SF to San Jose was begun by John Whistman. The 9-hour trip in an
old French omnibus driven by Henry Ward cost $32 each way.
(Ind, 10/31/98, p.5A)
1849 A Peruvian consulate was
established in SF with Carlos Varea as the first consul.
(Ind, 8/3/99, p.3A)
1849 A Market Street doctor funded
the 1st "city physician" practice with gambling winnings. This was
later considered as the beginning of SF General Hospital. In 2000 F.
William Blaisdell and Moses Grossman published "Catastrophes,
Epidemics, and Neglected Diseases" San Francisco General Hospital and
the Evolution of Public Health.
(SFEC, 2/27/00, BR p.6)(SFL)
1849 August Helbing, a Jewish
pioneer, rescued an ailing Jewish man who had just arrive by boat.
Helbing went on to help others and created the Eureka Benevolent
Society (1850), which later transformed to the Jewish Family and
Children’s Services organization.
(SFC, 12/30/00, p.A15)(SFL)
1849 Some 23,000 people arrive in
SF by land and 62,000 by sea.
(SFEC, 3/14/99, Z1 p.6)
1850 Jan 22, The Alta California
newspaper became the first daily in SF. The founding editors were
Edward Gilbert and Edward C. Kemble.
(PI, 8/8/98, p.5)
1850 Jan 23, The Journal of
Commerce became the 2nd daily newspaper in SF.
(PI, 8/8/98, p.5)
1850 Feb 18, The California state
legislature created the original 18 counties including the city of San
Francisco.
(SFEC, 1/11/98, DB
p.41)(www.sfgov.org/site/visitor_index.asp?id=8091)
1850 Mar, The Pacific News, a
daily newspaper, began publishing in SF.
(PI, 8/8/98, p.5)
1850 Apr 1, The San Francisco
County government was established.
(www.sfgov.org/site/visitor_index.asp?id=8091)
1850 Apr 15, The city of San
Francisco was incorporated.
(AP,
4/15/97)(www.sfgov.org/site/visitor_index.asp?id=8091)
1850 May, A fire broke out and 3
square blocks were consumed.
(SFC, 12/24/99, p.A24)
1850 Jun 1, The Daily Herald
newspaper began publishing in SF.
(PI, 8/8/98, p.5)
1850 Jun, Another fire broke out
in SF.
(SFC, 12/24/99, p.A24)
1850 Aug 1, The Evening Picayune
newspaper began daily publishing in SF.
(PI, 8/8/98, p.5)
1850 Sep, A 4th major fire broke
out in SF.
(SFC, 12/24/99, p.A24)
1850 Oct, In San Francisco the
Eureka Benevolent Society was organized at 414 Clay St. Some 746
members met to “assist poor and needy Hebrews in want or sickness.”
(SFC, 10/13/09, p.E5)(SFL)
1850 Dec, A 5th major fire broke
out in SF.
(SFC, 12/24/99, p.A24)
1850 The Abner Phelps house was
built at 1111 Oak St. In 2001 it was the oldest dwelling in SF.
(SFC, 4/13/01, WBb p.1)(SFL)
1850 Giuseppe Bazzuro turned an
abandoned ship into San Francisco’s 1st Italian restaurant.
(SFC, 9/7/05, p.F4)
1850 Pres. Fillmore recommended a
federal mint in SF to replace the 20 private mints.
(SSFC, 1/28/03, p.E1)(SFL)
1850 Col. John Geary, the first
mayor of San Francisco, donated land for a square to be held in
perpetuity for park use. It later became Union Square. He owned the
surrounding property and looked to increase its value.
(SFEC, 3/15/98, p.W27)(SSFC, 7/21/02, p.F2)(SFL)
1850 John Coffee Hays, a Texas
Ranger turned Californian, acquired a piece of the Coppinger land grant
in San Mateo Ct. and called it Hays Ranch. He later became the 1st
sheriff of SF and after that served as the federal surveyor-general for
the state.
(Ind, 5/26/01, 5A)
c1850 The Sydney Ducks, a ruthless
gang of Australian ex-convicts, based their operations on the
waterfront between Pacific and Broadway. They terrorized the citizens
and set fires that devastated the city.
(SFC, 5/19/96,City Guide, p.16)(SFL)
1850 After statehood civil
engineer Jasper O’Farrell began laying out South of Market’s street
pattern with extra large city blocks, 2x the size of those North of
Market.
(SFC, 8/18/96, p.E6)
1850 James Folger (18), a native
of Massachusetts, began roasting beans in SF. Folger’s Coffee
established itself on the Barbary Coast and was the first major coffee
company in SF. Jim Folger eventually traveled to the gold country to
sell coffee to miners.
(SFC, 6/28/97, p.D2)(SSFC, 8/5/01, p.A1)(SFC,
6/5/08, p.C2)
1850 The Phoenix Day lighting
manufacturer began operations in San Francisco.
(SSFC, 4/3/06, p.G5)
1850 Ferry commuting began on the
SF Bay. Robert Semple operated a ferry service to Benicia which had
grown to some 1,000 citizens. Semple advertised in the SF newspaper,
the Californian, which he published.
(SFEC, 4/21/97, p.A11)(SFEC, 3/1/98, p.W26)
1850 Prussian-born Adolph Sutro
(20) sailed through the Golden Gate on the steamer California.
(G, Winter 98/99, p.1)
1850s Joseph A. Donohue and John
Parrott founded the Donohue-Kelly Banking Co. in SF.
(SFC, 6/4/98, p.C4)
1850s Isaias Wolf Hellman
immigrated to SF from Bavaria and later became president of Nevada Bank
of SF which became Wells Fargo Bank.
(SFC, 10/12/00, p.C2)
1850s In the early 1850s SF
surrendered San Mateo County.
(SFEC, 2/9/97, p.W4)
1850s SF was one of the few cities
with a population of more than 30,000 and no police department.
(SFEC,10/26/97, BR p.2)
1850s Washerwoman’s Lagoon was a
large pond used as a laundry site at Gough and Greenwich.
(SFEC, 11/15/98, p.A15)(SFL)
1850-1844 There are 1200 murders in SF in this
period, and only one results in a legal execution.
(SFC, 11/15/95, p.B-1)
1851 May 4, The Sydney Ducks set
fire to a store on San Francisco’s Portsmouth Square. Most of the
dwellings on Telegraph Hill were destroyed. The heart SF was destroyed
and some 2000 buildings burned down. This led to the formation of the
secret Committee of Vigilance, which hung several criminals and drove
others out of the city. Remnants from Hoff's store, built on a wharf
over the bay, were found in 1986 during excavations for the Embarcadero
West 33-story high-rise.
(SFC, 12/24/99, p.A24)(SFC, 11/27/00, p.A18)
1851 May 4, The 1840-ship General
Harrison burned to the water line. It was salvaged for parts, buried
and not seen again until 2001 when construction at Battery and Clay
revealed its remains. The whaling ship Niantic, already converted to a
waterfront hotel, burned and sank into the bay. In 1977 new
construction uncovered the Niantic’s burned remains.
(SFC, 9/8/01, p.A11)(SFC, 2/4/05, p.E16)
1851 Jun 9, Father John McGinnis
celebrated Mass in a hall at Fourth and Jessie and marked the founding
of St. Patrick’s. St. Patrick’s Church was built on Market St. at the
present site of the Sheraton-Palace Hotel. It was moved in 1872 to Eddy
St. near Divisedero and served as the Parish Hall for Holy Cross. The
wooden structure is thought to be the oldest in the city.
(SFEC, 3/2/97, z1 p.7)(SSFC, 6/10/01, p.A22)
1851 Oct, The first of 17 ships
arrived in SF from France following a lottery by Napoleon’s government
which provided passage to some 3,000 for the gold rush.
(SFCM, 4/30/06, p.4)
1851 Books Inc. first opened as an
independent bookseller in San Francisco.
(Hem., Nov.’95, p.134)
1851 In San Francisco the St.
Francis Church was rebuilt in adobe and blessed by Joseph S. Alemany,
the new Bishop of Monterey. St. Francis served as his cathedral until
Old St. Mary's was built in 1854.
(SFC, 10/4/99, p.A21)
1851 In San Francisco the
congregation of the First Presbyterian Church moved into its first
building in Chinatown, which burned down after 6 months.
(SFC, 5/20/99, p.A19)
1851 In San Francisco Sam Brannan
and several other leaders formed the First Committee of Vigilance. They
took it on themselves to purge the city of criminals.
(SFC, 5/19/96,City Guide, p.16)
1851 Jacob Gundlach arrived in SF
and soon established a brewery. In 1858 he bought a winery in Sonoma.
(SFC, 12/19/02, p.D4)
1851 The Hitchcock family
transferred to SF and were welcomed into the Chivalry, a polite
fraternity of transplanted Southerners.
(SFEM, 4/2/00, p.46)
1851 The first SF omnibus line
began operating between Portsmouth square and Mission Dolores.
(SFC, 10/6/99, p.A4)
1851 Henry Casebolt (1816-1892) of
Virginia came to California and established himself as a builder and
inventor in San Francisco.
(www.midcontinent.org/rollingstock/builders/casebolt.htm)
1851 Harry Meiggs, founder of
Fisherman’s Wharf in SF, sailed to Mendocino with a full sawmill and
made Mendocino the primary source for the Bay Area’s lumber.
(SSFC, 6/3/01, Par p.20)
1851 Haas Bros. began operation in
San Francisco as a grocery wholesaler. The company later switched to
liquor wholesales.
(SSFC, 4/3/06, p.G5)
1851 About 775 abandoned ships sat
in the SF Bay. Some began to be used as offices and public buildings.
The ship Euphemia became the city’s 1st jail and insane asylum. An
enterprising barkeep cut a hole in the beached sailing vessel Arkansas
and began selling what he called “Gud, Bad and Ind’ifferent Spirits” at
25 cents each. The Old Ship Saloon at Pacific Avenue and Battery Street
was built in 1907 and remodeled in 1999.
(Ind, 9/2/00,5A)(SSFC, 11/15/09, p.A2)
1851 Francisco Guerrero, Mexican
official in Alta California, was struck in the back of the head by a
slingshot and died. His murder was believed to have kept him from
testifying in a murder trial.
(SFEC, 9/21/97, p.C7)
1852 Mar 18, Henry C. Wells
founded Wells, Fargo & Co. with William C. Fargo in San Francisco
as a Western equivalent to their east coast American Express. It
evolved into Wells Fargo Bank, headquartered in San Francisco and now
one of the largest financial institutions in the U.S. In 2002 Philip L.
Fradkin authored “Stagecoach: Wells Fargo and the American West” for
the company’s 150th anniversary.
(SFEC, 1/4/98, Z1p.4)(SFC, 6/9/98, p.A10)(HNQ,
11/20/98)(SFC, 2/6/02, p.D1)
(SFC, 3/19/02, p.B1,4)
1852 Jun 18, Domingo Ghirardelli,
an Italian candy-maker from Peru, announced the opening of his
chocolate business. [see 1855]
(SFC, 10/8/97, Z1 p.6)(SFC, 4/26/02, p.G8)
1852 Aug 2, State Sen. James W.
Denver, from Klamath and Trinity counties, challenged Edward Gilbert,
editor of the SF Alta California newspaper, to a duel due to an
inflammatory editorial. The pair met at Fair Oaks, near Sacramento, and
when Gilbert forced a 2nd round of shots, Denver put a fatal shot
through his chest. Denver’s 2nd shot hit Gilbert above the left hip.
C.A. Washburn succeeded Gilbert at the Alta.
(PI, 6/13/98, p.5A)(PI, 8/8/98, p.5)
1852 Lighthouse builders arrived
on the Farallon Islands. The Pacific Egg Co. claimed ownership and
gathered murre eggs there for sale to San Franciscans. Manned
lighthouse operations began their in 1855 and continued to 1972. In
1881 the government evicted the Pacific Egg Co.
(SFC, 3/18/05, p.E4)
1852 Three churches were founded
in SF: Bethel Methodist, First Zion and the Third Baptist celebrated
their 150 year anniversaries in 2002.
(SFC, 9/9/02, p.A19)
1852 In San Francisco
half-brothers George and Samuel Shreve opened Shreve & Co., their
1st jewelry near what later became Union Square. It remained a retail
store until 1881 when George (d.1893) opened a jewelry-making factory.
(SSFC, 7/21/02, p.F3)(SFC, 9/19/07, p.G6)
1852 The Daughters of Charity of
St. Vincent de Paul opened an orphanage at Market and Montgomery. The
nuns arrived to care for the orphans and victims of the cholera
epidemic. The orphanage later moved and was renamed Mount St. Joseph.
(SFC, 9/15/98, p.A9)(Ind, 8/11/01, 5A)
1852 San Francisco's Sacred Heart
school was founded.
(SFC, 1/16/04, p.E2)
c1852 C.A. Washburn, the new
editor of the Alta and opposed to slavery, dueled with B.F. Washington,
editor of the Times and Transcript, who was pro-slavery. Washburn was
badly wounded but recovered.
(PI, 8/8/98, p.5)
1852 The San Francisco Gas Co. was
founded by 3 brothers. In 1905 it merged with California electric Light
to form PG&E.
(SFC, 4/7/01, p.A5)
1852 The Pioneer Appliance Co. was
founded in SF.
(SFC, 8/11/00, p.D5)
1852 The Shreve & Co. jewelry
store opened in SF.
(SSFC, 4/3/06, p.G5)
1852 George Gordon began acquiring
lots in the block bounded by Second, Third, Brannon and Bryant (later
known as South Park). Lord Gordon bought 12 acres for $48,500.
(SFC, 7/21/00, p.WBb3)
1852-1899 Malcolm E. Barker edited the 1996 book “San
Francisco Memoirs: The Ripening Years” that covered this period. It was
the 2nd of a planned trilogy.
(SFC, 11/22/96, p.C9)
1853 Jul 29, Pope Pius IX
established the archdiocese of San Francisco, Ca., under Archbishop
Alemany.
(SSFC, 7/27/03, p.A22)(GenIV, Winter 04/05)
1853 By this year there were 12
daily newspapers published in SF. The Sun was the favorite.
(PI, 8/8/98, p.5)
1853 Joseph J. Atkinson, a brick
contractor, built a house at 1032 Broadway. It was remodeled by Willis
Polk in 1893 and survived the 1906 earthquake and fire.
(SFC, 2/23/99, p.A15)
1853 Henry Meiggs completed a
wharf to serve the lumber trade. He fled to South America to avoid his
creditors and died in Peru in 1877. His wharf grew to become
Fisherman’s Wharf. Early businesses in the area included Abe Warner’s
eatery “Cobweb Palace,” Cockney White’s museum, Driscoll’s Salt
Water Tub Bathing Emporium, and Riley’s Shooting Gallery. The 1998 book
“Crab Is King” by Bernard Averbuch covers the story of Fisherman’s
Wharf.
(SFEC, 7/12/98, DB p.30)
1853 A Morse telegraph was station
was erected on the SF hill now known as Telegraph Hill. Telegraph Hill
was once known as Tin Can Hill until a semaphore station was set up on
the summit to alert the city on ship arrivals.
(HT, 5/97, p.12)(SFC, 11/27/00, p.A18)
1853 John Parrott (42), SF
businessman, married Abigail Eastman Meagher (18) in Mobile, Ala. He
brought her back to SF and they set up house in a new brownstone on
Folsom St. in the Rincon Hill. In 1859 they acquired property in San
Mateo.
(Ind, 11/24/01, 5A)
1853 Levi Strauss, Bavarian-born
dry goods merchant, arrived in California. and Co. He got his start
peddling tough canvas pants to California gold miners. When his canvas
ran out he switched to serge de Nimes, which evolved into denim. [See
1873, 1874]
(SFC, 1/23/96, p.C4)(SFC, 1/9/99, p.D3)(CHA, 1/2001)
1853 Joshua Norton attempted to
corner the SF rice market with the purchase of $250,000 worth of rice
but went bust when rice carrying ships sailed into the Bay. He filed
for bankruptcy.
(G&M, 7/30/97, p.A24)
1853 J.G. Knowles established the
first dairy in San Mateo County in the middle of what is now Daly City
to supply milk to SF.
(GTP, 1973, p.63)
1853 In SF the Laurel Hill
Cemetery was established. Residents were moved to Colma in 1939-1940
and the site was used for housing.
(SFC, 5/7/08, p.G6)
1853 The SF YMCA was founded and
was the basis for the later Golden Gate Univ.
(SFEC, 3/15/98, p.W21)
1853 The El Dorado saloon on
Kearny St. in SF received a piano shipped around Cape Horn. The piano
was later sold to the David Fay family of soap makers.
(SFCM, 8/28/05, p.11)
1853 The freighter Tennessee was
wrecked off the Marin headlands. The event spurred Congress to fund a
lighthouse at Point Bonita.
(WSJ, 9/17/96, p.A12)(G, Winter 96/97, p.3)
1853-1854 Cornelius Garrison served as mayor of San
Francisco.
(www.sffiremuseum.org/people.html)
1853-1906 This period was later covered by
architectural historian William Kostura in his "Russian Hill: The
Summit, 1853-1906."
(SFC, 2/23/99, p.A15)
1854 Mar, Bret Harte arrived in SF
with his sister.
(SFEC, 9/3/00, BR p.6)
1854 Apr 3, The SF Mint opened at
608 Commercial St. It issued $4 million in gold coins this year. An
Indian princess appeared on gold dollars.
(SFC, 8/21/01, p.A12)(SSFC, 1/28/03, p.E1)(WSJ,
12/12/03, p.W15)(SFC, 4/2/04, p.F3)
1854 Nov 4, The first lighthouse
on the West Coast was built at Alcatraz Island.
(SFC, 5/19/96,City Guide, p.7)(MC, 11/4/01)
1854 Dec 25, St. Mary’s at
California and Grant in SF, the first cathedral in California,
celebrated its 1st service with a midnight Mass. The Gothic Revival
church was designed by William Crane and Thomas England and used
granite from China and bricks from New England.
(SFC, 4/7/96, p.B-10)(SFC, 6/13/96, p.C3)(SFC,
11/26/04, p.FF)
1854 In SF the city’s original
International Hotel was built on Jackson Street.
(SSFC, 8/19/07, p.B1)
1854 The 1st California State Fair
was held in SF.
(SSFC, 8/7/05, p.F7)
1854 Sarah Moore Clarke was the
first California woman to start a newspaper. She began the Contra Costa
weekly in Oakland and printed on the SF Evening Journal’s presses. She
and her husband later bought the SF paper.
(SFEC, 3/8/98, BR p.6)
1854 Bishop William Kip,
California's 1st missionary bishop, arrived and rescued the struggling
congregation of Grace Church.
(SFC, 7/15/99, p.A19)
1854 Five Sisters of Presentation
(f.1776) arrived in San Francisco from Ireland to teach the children of
miners.
(SFC, 11/12/04, p.F11)
1854 The Mechanic’s Institute was
founded as a center for adult technical education to help overcome a
post-Gold Rush depression. For some 17 years the Institute held
mechanics and manufacturing fairs on Union Square.
(SFEC, 11/3/96, DB p.33)(SFC, 1/10/96, p.B2)
1854 Gustaf Francois Thomas
arrived in SF from France and opened the G.F. Dyeing and Cleaning
Works. In 2005 his descendants planned to end operations.
(SFC, 8/27/05, p.B1)
c1854-1856 George Robinson Fardon (1807-1886),
British photographer, took pictures of SF for his "San Francisco Album
1854-1856," believed to be the first camera survey of an American city.
(SFC, 6/19/99, p.B3)
1855 Jul 4, The Whaling ship
Candace, built in Boston in 1818, entered SF Bay and never left. In
2005 it was found at a SF construction site at Folsom and Spear streets.
(SFC, 1/28/06, p.A1)
1855 Jul 15, St. Ignatius Church
was dedicated. Construction soon began for a school and residence.
(GenIV, Winter 04/05)
1855 Oct 8, James King, a
Unitarian moralist from Boston, began publishing his newly purchased
daily, the Evening Bulletin.
(PI, 8/8/98, p.5)
1855 Oct 15, St. Ignatius opened
for classes with 3 students at 841 Market St. In the 1880s St. Ignatius
College moved to a new campus on Van Ness.
(SFEC, 2/9/97, p.W4)(GenIV, Winter 04/05)
1855 Nov 26, Several thousand
people staged a parade and banquet at South Park to celebrate the
Allied victory over the Russians in the Crimean War, the capture of the
Malakoff fortress in Sevastopol.
(SFC, 7/21/00, p.WBb3)
1855 The 800 plus-page “The Annals
of San Francisco” was published.
(SFEC, 2/9/97, p.W4,5)
1855 The Point Bonita Lighthouse
was built for ships approaching the Golden Gate.
(G, Summer ‘97, p.5)
1855 Domingo Ghirardelli closed
his chocolate factory in Hornitos due to the crime and mayhem and moved
to SF. [see 1852]
(SFEC, 4/12/98, p.T6)
1855 A normal school was set up in
SF to improve the quality of teaching.
(SFEC, 3/21/99, Z1 p.4)
1855 By this year most of the
streets of downtown and the Western Addition were laid out and given
Anglo names.
(SFEC, 9/21/97, p.C7)
1855 By this year South Park had
17 elegant homes with its own windmill and access to downtown by a
horse-drawn omnibus that ran up Third St. to North Beach.
(SFC, 7/21/00, p.WBb3)
1855 A depression slowed progress
in San Francisco when the money supply dwindled after banks had
overextended in loans to unprofitable ventures.
(SFC, 5/19/96,City Guide, p.16)
1855 A beer brewing operation,
later known as the California Brewing Co. began in SF.
(SFC, 4/9/04, p.F10)
1855 Kellogg & Company minted
$50 coins on Montgomery Street. In 2001 only 12 of the original coins
were known to exist and were valued at $250,000 each. 5,000 new coins
were planned to be struck with the original dies from California gold
bars salvaged from the 1857 wreck of the Central America.
(SFC, 8/21/01, p.12)
c1855 John Daly (13) arrived in SF
from Boston. His mother died of yellow fever while they crossed the
Isthmus of Panama.
(CHA, 1/2001)
1856 May 14, James P. Casey,
editor of the SF Times, shot James King, proprietor of the rival
Evening Bulletin. King died 6 days later. A “Vigilance Committee” of
2,600 later marched up Sacramento St. and broke into the jail where
Casey was held. He was lynched with his unfortunate cell mate.
(SFEC, 3/8/98, BR p.1)
1856 May 20, James King, editor of
the Evening Bulletin, died from wounds suffered on May 14. His death
brought about the rising of vigilantes and the take over of the SF
government.
(PI, 8/8/98,
p.5)(http://elane.stanford.edu/wilson/Text/11b.html)
1856 May 22, Charles Cora and
James Casey were hanged by the SF Committee of Vigilance.
(GenIV, Winter 04/05)
1856 Aug 18, In SF thousands of
armed men paraded through the streets and then formally dissolved the
second Committee of Vigilance. They had run SF for nearly 4 months much
to the distress of Mayor James Van Ness and militia officer William T.
Sherman.
(SFC, 8/18/06, p.B1)
1856 Nov 15, The clipper ship
Neptune’s Car arrived in SF after sailing 136 days from NYC. Mary Ann
Patten (1837-1861), the pregnant 19-year-old wife of Captain Joshua
Patten (d.1857), commanded the ship for much of its voyage after the
captain fell ill.
(AH, 2/05, p.60)
1856 William Davis Merry Howard,
SF merchant and pioneer, died and was buried on Lone Mountain. His body
was later exhumed and reburied in San Mateo. His 15-acre El Cerrito
estate passed to Agnes Poett, his widow. The estate stood on the
dividing line between San Mateo and Hillsborough. Agnes soon married
Howard's younger brother George and together built a sprawling country
home.
(Ind, 5/31/03, p.5A)(Ind, 9/1/01, 5A)
1858 Oct, Coaches of the
Butterfield Overland Stage Co. began serving the peninsula. The
Butterfield operation was already charged with carrying the US Mail
from St. Louis to SF via southern Ca.
(Ind, 10/31/98, p.5A)
1856 Dec 29, Snow fell in San
Francisco and accumulated to 2-3 inches.
(SFEM, 12/22/96, p.20)
1856 A Second Committee of
Vigilance was formed after a newspaper editor was shot down by a
corrupt politician.
(SFC, 5/19/96,City Guide, p.16)
1857 In SF the cornerstone for the
new St. Francis Church was laid.
(SFC, 10/4/99, p.A21)
1857 The San Francisco Slavonic
Mutual and Benevolent Society, the oldest Croatian society in the US,
was founded.
(SFC, 2/17/05, p.E3)
1857 The California Savings and
Land Association at 465 California St. was built. Henry Collins, one of
California’s wealthiest black leaders, served as president of the first
African-American owned bank in the country.
(SFC, 2/16/09,
p.B2)(www.afrigeneas.com/forum-west/index.cgi?md=read;id=43)
1858 May 20, William Ralston (32),
banker, married Elizabeth Red Fry (21) at the Calvary Presbyterian
Church in SF.
(Ind, 11/2/02, 5A)
1858 Sep 15, The Butterfield
Overland Mail Company began delivering mail from St. Louis to San
Francisco. The company's motto was: "Remember, boys, nothing on God's
earth must stop the United States mail!"
(HN, 9/15/99)
1858 In San Francisco George Kenny
built his Octogon House at 1067 Green St. In 1954 it was believed to be
the oldest standing house in SF.
(SFC, 11/19/04, p.F8)
1858 In San Francisco the First
Baptist congregation built a brick chapel on Washington St.
(SFC, 11/18/99, p.A22)
1858 The St. Vincent de Paul
Society of SF was established.
(SFC, 9/15/98, p.A9)
1858 In San Francisco a saloon was
established on the corner of Center Street (later 16th Street) at
Guerrero. It burned down in the 1906 earthquake and fire. A new
building was erected on the site in 1907. In 2009 the Elixir claimed to
be the 3rd oldest saloon in the city.
(SSFC, 11/15/09, p.A2)
1858 In San Francisco the Catholic
Monitor newspaper began to be published. It was folded in 1983 and a
new version was scheduled in 1998.
(SFC, 5/12/98, p.A17)
1859 Mar 1, The present seal of
San Francisco was adopted (its 2nd).
(SC, 3/1/02)
1859 Jun 11, Comstock silver load
was discovered near Virginia City, Nevada. Prospector James Finney
stumbled across thick, bluish clay in western Nevada. A fellow minor,
Henry Comstock, gave his name to the lode, the most lucrative silver
ore mine in history. Ott’s Assay Office in Nevada City, Ca., first
assayed samples of the rich Comstock Lode of Nevada. Four Irishmen
known as the Bonanza Kings bought up shares in the Comstock mines and
became rich. They were John Mackay, James Fair, James Flood, and
William O’Brian. Ore from the Comstock lode was hauled by horse-drawn
wagon over Donner Pass to SF.
(SFEC, 6/25/00, p.T6)(SFC, 4/14/96, T-3)(SFC,
5/19/96,City Guide, p.17)(RFH-MDHP, 1969, p.107)(SC, 6/11/02)
1859 Sep 13, David C. Broderick, a
US Senator, faced David S. Terry, Chief Justice of the California
Supreme Court, in a duel at Lake Merced. Broderick was hit in the chest
and died after 60 hours. Terry fled the scene and resigned his position
the next day. He was charged with murder and was arrested Sep 23, but
was not convicted. The weapons used were a pair of Belgian .58-caliber
pistols on loan from an associate of Terry. Broderick’s weapon was set
with a hair-trigger, and misfired. The pistols sold at auction in 1998
for $34,500.
(PI, 5/30/98, p.5A)(SFC, 11/25/98, p.B8)(Ind,
5/12/01, 5A)
1859 Sep 16, In San Francisco US
Senator David C. Broderick died at the Leonides Haskell house at Fort
Mason, following his Sep 13 duel with David S. Terry, Chief Justice of
the California Supreme Court, near Lake Merced.
(SFC, 9/7/09, p.C1)
1859 Sep 17, The San Francisco
Call Bulletin published a notice on an inside page announcing that
Joshua Norton, formerly a prominent SF businessman, had proclaimed
himself Norton I, “Emperor of these United States.” Norton lived at a
rooming house at 624 Commercial St., where he paid 50 cents a night for
a modest room. Norton proclaimed himself Emperor of the United States
and Protector of Mexico with a proclamation delivered to the offices of
the San Francisco Bulletin. He annexed the whole of the US and
suspended the Constitution.
(HFA, ‘96, p.64)(G&M, 7/30/97, p.A24)(SFC,
9/17/09, p.A1)
1859 The Lutheran congregation of
Rev. Mooshake adopted the name First German Evangelical Lutheran Church.
(SFC, 10/16/99, p.A19)
1859 The SF Call reported on the
“Hoochie Coochie” dancers on the stages of the Bella Union, The Olympic
and the Midway Plaisance and other dance halls: “dances of licentious
and profane character, obscenity were served in superior style.”
(SFEM,11/30/97, p.20)
1859 Milton Slocum Latham became
governor of California. He resigned within hours after receiving an
appointment to the US Senate. His SF home at 656 Folsom St. was alleged
to be one of the most sumptuous in America.
(Ind, 1/9/98, p.5A)
1859 Richard Tobin, SF attorney,
co-founded the Hibernia Savings and Loan Society.
(Daly City Fog Cutter, Vol 8 No. 3, 2008)
1859 The population of SF was
about 50,000 people.
(SFEM, 3/2/97, p.10)
1860 Apr 14, First Pony Express
rider arrived in San Francisco with mail originating in St. Joseph,
Missouri.
(HN, 4/14/98)
1860 Apr 23, The Pony Express
rider missed the boat at Benicia, Ca. Thomas Bedford, a 34-year-old
stable keeper, was hired on the spot and boarded the ferry Carquinez
with his horse. His discovered that his horse had lost a shoe and
borrowed a horse from Martinez blacksmith Casemoro Briones and
delivered the mail to the ferry at Oakland. The mail reached SF 9 hours
and 15 minutes from the time it left Sacramento.
(SFC, 4/28/97, p.A19)
1860 May 21, Phinneas Gage died in
SF from a major seizure. Gage had survived an 1848 blasting accident in
Vermont when tamping iron blasted through his skull. [see Sep 13, 1848]
(ON, 10/02, p.10)
1860 Jun 7, Workmen started laying
track for Market Street Railroad in SF.
(SC, 6/7/02)
1860 Jul 4, The Market Street
Railroad Co. opened a line on Market from Third to Valencia running
both horsecar and steam train lines.
(GenIV, Winter 04/05)
1860 Rodney Tabor (13) and C.A.
Wetmore (13), students at the Hyde Street Grammar School, began
publishing “The Young Californian,” a SF newspaper for kids.
(SFC, 2/1/02, p.D13)
c1860 The sand dune deeded by Col.
John Geary was removed and the 1st design for a public square (Union
Square) was completed.
(SSFC, 7/21/02, p.F2)
1860 The St. Francis of Assisi
Norman Gothic church at Columbus and Vallejo was built around the
original 1849 structure and was the city’s first cathedral.
Bishop Alemany dedicated the church on St. Patrick's day. It was gutted
by fire in 1906 but restored.
(SFEC, 3/2/97, z1 p.6)
1860 The St. Brigid Church in Cow
Hollow was built. [see 1863]
(SFC, 4/23/98, p.A19)
1860 Rev. Jacob Matthias Buehler
(23) arrived in SF and took over the 20 member Lutheran congregation.
(SFC, 10/16/99, p.A19)
1860 The Saloon at 1232 Grant
Avenue began operating about this time. It survived the 1906 earthquake
and fire as fire fighters managed to save the building, also home to a
brothel.
(SSFC, 11/15/09, p.A2)
1860 Etinne Guittard started
grinding cacao beans in SF on Commercial St. In 1997 Guittard Chocolate
was the oldest family-owned chocolate manufacturer in the US.
(SFC, 10/8/97, Z1 p.6)
1860 Carleton Watkins shared a
photographic studio on Montgomery St. He produced a series of
stereoscopic views in one of the early photo publishing ventures in SF.
Watkins had left Oneonta, N.Y., in 1851 and picked up his photo skills
under Robert Vance, who operated a studio at 429 Montgomery.
(SFEC, 5/23/99, DB p.42)
1860 The population of SF reached
56,802.
(SFC, 8/27/05, p.B1)
1860s A brewery was built on
Pacific Ave. It was named The Anchor Brewing Co. in 1896.
(SFC, 3/3/99, Z1 p.9)
1860s The first SF Butchertown was
located around Polk and Chestnut.
(SFEC, 11/15/98, p.A15)
1861 May, Groundbreaking was held
at San Francisquito Creek for the San Francisco and San Jose Railroad.
(Ind, 4/20/02, 5A)
1861 Jul 3, Pony Express arrived
in SF with overland letters from NY.
(MC, 7/3/02)
1861 The US Army’s red brick
bastion at Fort Point was built.
(HT, 5/97, p.63)
1861 The Octogon House was built
at 2645 Gough by William C. McElroy, a miller. It now contains
decorative arts of the Colonial and Federal periods.
(SFEC, 11/3/96, DB p.33)(SFEC,11/2/97, DB p.31)
1861 San Francisco’s Market Street
was paved.
(GenIV, Winter 04/05)
1861 The state Legislature gave
the Sisters of Mercy $5,000 to help build an asylum for women in SF.
Magdalene Asylum was built on Potrero St. and by 1874 housed 150 women
and girls. In 1904 it was renamed to St. Catherine's Home and
Industrial School.
(SSFC, 8/24/03, p.A27)
c1861 Marco Fontana formed the
California Fruit Canners Association at a brick building near
Fisherman’s Wharf. In 1963 the Cannery was converted to a shopping mall
by Manchurian immigrant Leonid Matveyeff.
(SFEC, 7/12/98, DB p.30)
1861 Solomon Gump founded Gump’s.
(SFC, 6/22/01, WBb p.9)
1861-1862 The winter of this time flooded the area
with a record 49.27 inches of rain with 24.36 inches in January.
(SFC, 2/24/98, p.A1)(SFC, 5/27/98, p.A1)
1861-1865 The mid-downtown park, donated to San
Francisco by Mayor John Geary, became the site of rallies on behalf of
the Union that gave the park its name. Many of the rallies were led by
Unitarian minister Thomas Starr King (1824-1864). The block was renamed
Union Square to commemorate the rallies.
(SFEC, 3/15/98, p.W27)(SSFC, 7/21/02, p.F2)
1861-1865 The Pioneer Woolen Mill by Fisherman’s
Wharf produced blankets and uniforms for the Union army during the
Civil War.
(SFEC, 7/12/98, DB p.30)
1862 May 5, Gov. Leland Stanford
signed a bill that appropriated $3,000 to convert the SF normal school
into the first state sponsored institution of higher education. The
California State Normal School.
(SFEC, 3/21/99, Z1 p.4)
1862 May, The Board of Supervisors
decreed that dogs in public without muzzles would be grabbed by the
city pound keeper, kept for 48 hours, and destroyed if not redeemed for
$5.
(SSFC, 1/27/02, p.D6)
1862 Jun, SF Lawmakers signed a
petition to anoint Lazarus (d.1963) and Bummer (d.1865), 2 popular rat
catching dogs, as official city property and exempt from the recently
passed muzzle law.
(SSFC, 1/27/02, p.D6)(SFC, 1/30/04, p.A23)
1862 Oct 31, Rev. Buehler and his
Lutheran congregation laid the cornerstone for the new St. Mark's
Evangelical Lutheran Church on Union Square. The land cost $5000,
donated by Claus Sprechels, and later became the site of Macy's.
(SFC, 10/16/99, p.A20)
1862 Grace Church was rebuilt in a
brick Gothic style. It was destroyed in the 1906 earthquake.
(SFC, 7/15/99, p.A19)
1862 Greek Revival houses were
built in the Presidio along Funston Ave. They initially faced west but
were turned to face eat in 1879.
(SFC, 4/25/01, WB p.4)
1862 The San Francisco Stock and
Bond Exchange was established by 19 founding members as a marketplace
for mining company stocks following the Comstock Lode strike.
(SSFC, 1/25/04, p.I3)
1862 The Six Companies was founded
in SF to assist Chinese arriving in California.
(SFC, 4/1/04, p.B1)
1862 Charles Segalas began a
liquor manufacturing operation that served the French and Basque
communities in the Bay Area and Western states.
(SFC, 7/10/99, p.A21)
1862 The Pacific Mail Co.'s Golden
Gate steamer sank off Manzanillo. An English salvage company recovered
gold bullion and artifacts in 1928.
(SFC, 6/20/03, p.E2)
1862-1957 Bernard Maybeck, architect. He designed the
palace of Fine Arts in SF and the First Church of Christ Scientist in
Berkeley.
(SFEM,12/797, p.46)
1863 Apr 29, Randolph Hearst was
born in SF.
(SFEM, 10/24/99, p.20)
1863 Oct 23, The railroad came to
the SF peninsula. Some 400 people swarmed into 6 cars and rode to San
Mateo’s Francisquito Creek to join a picnic as guests of the railroad
management. The first stop out of SF was near the school house where
Mission St. and Old San Pedro Road met. The depot was called
Schoolhouse station.
(GTP, 1973, p.73)
1863 Hubert Howe Bancroft
discovered 75 volumes pertaining to California on the shelves of his SF
bookstore and began accumulating works on the Trans-Mississippi West.
His personal history project was completed in 1894 and in 1905 UC
Berkeley acquired his personal library.
(OAH, 2/05, p.A6)
1863 The first San Francisco Cliff
House was built as a dining establishment for well-to-do families. It
was purchased in 1881 by Adolph Sutro. It burned down in 1907 and was
rebuilt in 1909 [see 1881].
(SFC, 1/7/97, p.B1)(SFC, 4/14/99, Z1 p.4)
1863 St. Brigid Church was built.
It was later rebuilt 6 times and transformed from a wooden structure to
a granite building with stained glass imported from Dublin, Ireland.
[see 1860]
(SFC, 6/30/99, p.A14)
1863 Fitz Hugh Ludlow, author of
the 1857 book "The Hasheesh Eater," arrived in SF by the Overland
Stagecoach. He rode with painter Albert Bierstadt who married Ludlow's
wife in 1864. Ludlow wrote an account of his travels titled "The heart
of the Continent." In 1999 Donald P. Dulchinos published "Pioneer of
Inner Space: The Life of Fitz Hugh Ludlow, Hasheesh Eater."
(SFEC, 1/24/99, BR p.4)
1863 As San Francisco voters
considered a bond measure to help finance the Central pacific Railroad,
Philip Stanford, brother of the governor, drove through the city on
election day “handing out money liberally’ to all who would vote for
the bond.
(SFC, 7/8/96, p.D2)
1864 Jan 16, A celebration was
held in San Jose for the completion of the San Francisco and San Jose
Railroad.
(Ind, 4/20/02, 5A)
1864 Mar 4, Thomas Starr King
(b.1824), Unitarian minister, died in SF. During the Civil War, he
spoke zealously in favor of the Union and is credited (by Abraham
Lincoln) with saving California from becoming a separate republic. In
addition, he organized the Pacific Branch of the United States Sanitary
Commission, which cared for wounded soldiers. He led many rallies on
behalf of the Union in SF, and the site of the rallies was later
renamed Union Square.
(SSFC, 7/21/02,
p.F2)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Starr_King)
1864 Jul 5, William Ralston
founded the Bank of California with $2 million in capital.
(Ind, 11/2/02, 5A)(SFC, 4/7/06, SF Rising p.14)
1864 Aug 25, A combination rail
and ferry service became available from SF to Alameda, Ca.
(chblue.com, 8/25/01)
1864 Carleton Watkins made his
"San Francisco Panorama" photograph that stretched across five
18x22-inch negatives.
(SFEC, 5/23/99, DB p.42)
1864 UC Medical Center was founded
as Toland Medical College. It was named after founder Dr. Hugh H.
Toland, who arrived with the gold rush from South Carolina.
(SFC, 5/12/96, p.A-10)
1864 The restaurant known as
Jack’s opened on Sacramento St. From 1903 to 1996 it was owned by one
family.
(SFC, 12/31/96, p.B1)
1864 William Sharon (44) was sent
to Virginia City as manager of the Nevada branch of the Bank of
California.
(Ind, 7/1/00,5A)
1864 Herbert Liebes opened a fur
salon which grew to become H. Liebes & Company. Liebes ran sailing
schooners from Alaska to SF with cargoes of furs.
(SFC, 6/29/04, p.B6)
1865 Jan 16, Charles (19) and
Michael de Young (17) started a free theater-program sheet in SF called
The Daily Dramatic Chronicle. Early quarters were at Clay and
Montgomery. They borrowed a $20 gold piece from Capt. William Hinkley,
who owned the building where they lived, to start the paper.
(SFC, 7/18/96, p.A1)(SFEC, 3/8/98, BR p.1)(SFC,
8/7/99, p.A1)(SFC, 1/16/09, Extra p.1)
1865 Sep 24, James Cooke walked a
tightrope from the San Francisco Cliff House to Seal Rocks.
(MC, 9/24/01)
1865 Bret Harte edited the 1st
collection of California poetry from newspaper clippings of poems
compiled by Mary Tingley of San Francisco.
(SSFC, 1/4/04, p.M1)
1865 A gas works was constructed
in the China Basin area.
(SFEM, 4/9/00, p.10)
1865 The Odd Fellows Cemetery was
established on the slope of Lone Mountain at Stanyon St. In 1935 the
bones were moved to Colma.
(SFCM, 1/18/04, p.12)
1865 Andrew S. Hallidie moved to
SF and started producing flexible wire cable for carrying buckets of
ore.
(ON, 10/03, p.8)
1865 William Butterfield’s auction
business was founded in SF. In 1970 Butterfield & Butterfield was
sold to Bernard Osher. In 1999 the operation was acquired by EBay, a
San Jose-based online auction house.
(SFC, 4/27/99, p.B1)(SFC, 3/8/08, p.F6)
1865 The SF Elevator, a weekly
black newspaper edited by Philip Bell, was established.
(SFC, 7/2/07, p.B2)
1865 Irving Scott bought the Union
Iron Works in SF and steered the foundry into the ship building
industry (Pier 70).
(SSFC, 7/3/05, p.F2)
1865 An earthquake hit SF.
(SFC, 4/14/96, p.Z1, p.3)
1865-1875 Henry Casebolt, San Francisco inventor of
the cable car grip, built his Casebolt Mansion at 2727 Pierce St. in
Pacific Heights.
(www.noehill.com/sf/landmarks/sf051.asp)(http://tinyurl.com/c7rum4)
1866 Mar 31, Fred. Law Olmsted,
New York City landscape architect, wrote a long piece on city planning
for parks with special reference to San Francisco.
(SFEM, 7/27/97, p.30)
1866 Apr 6, Joseph Lincoln
Steffens (d.1936), American political philosopher, investigative
reporter and muckraker journalist (Shame of the Cities), was born in
San Francisco: "Nothing is done. Everything in the world remains to be
done or done over." "Never practice what you preach. If you're going to
practice it, why preach it?"
(AP, 5/16/97)(HN, 4/6/98)(AP, 4/24/98)(HNQ, 10/4/98)
1866 Dec 30, St. Mark's
Evangelical Lutheran Church on Union Square was dedicated.
(SFC, 10/16/99, p.A19)
1866 William Hammond Hall began to
design San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park.
(OAH, 2/05, p.A10)
1866 San Francisco established The
Almshouse on the grounds of what later became Laguna Honda Hospital,
providing shelter for the city’s unemployed and homeless men.
(SFC, 8/26/08, p.B5)
1866 In San Francisco the Sisters
of Notre Dame de Namur opened Notre Dame school across the street from
the Mission Dolores.
(SFC, 3/18/05, p.F2)
1866 Swiss-born Antoine Borel
(1840-1915) took over his brother’s SF mercantile firm, Alfred Borel
& Co., when Alfred returned to Europe. Antoine later became
director of the Bank of California (1882-1909), held directorships in
the SF Dry Dock Co., the Golden Gate Milk Co. and the Spring Valley
Water Co. He assumed the position of Swiss consul in 1885.
(Ind, 4/5/03, 5A)
1866 In San Francisco by this time
Lawrence & Houseworth, opticians, had established their firm as the
most prominent publisher on the West Coast. Their catalog included some
1200 images.
(SFEC, 5/23/99, DB p.42)
1866 Henry Casebolt, San Francisco
transit tycoon, built a house at 2727 Pierce St.
(SFC, 5/5/07, p.B3)
1866 Mary Ellen Pleasant was
kicked off a streetcar in San Francisco and began arguing against laws
prohibiting black people from riding them.
(SFC, 2/16/09, p.B2)
1866-1874 The Brannan Guard, an African American
military organization, was headquartered at 929 Pacific St.
(SFC, 1/31/02, p.D9)
1867 Mar, Banker William Ralston
separated from his wife Lizzie Ralston, who moved to France with their
4 children.
(Ind, 11/2/02, 5A)
c1867 St. Peter’s Church was built
in the Mission district at 24th and Alabama by Irish and Italian
immigrants.
(SFC, 1/20/96, p.A17)(SFEC, 3/30/97, p.A3)
1867 The St. Paulus Lutheran
church in SF was founded. The original church building burned down in
1995. In 2007 it moved from Gough and Eddy to join quarters with the
St. Coltrane African Orthodox Church on Fillmore.
(SFC, 5/28/07, p.D1)
1867 Laguna Honda Home opened as
the Almshouse on 80 acres of land off of Twin Peaks. The four-story
wooden structure was designed by Samuel Charles Bugbee and Miner
Frederic Butler.
(PI, 5/30/98, p.5A)
1867 Sam’s Grill at 374 Bush St.
opened in SF, Cal. It was operated as an oyster bar by Irish immigrant
Michael Bolan Moraghan. In 1922 Sam Zenovich of Yugoslavia bought the
operation and it became known as Sam’s. The Seput family, originally
from Yugoslavia, bought it in 1937 and in 2005 sold it to Phil Lyons.
{SF, Yugoslavia, Ireland}
(SFC, 3/14/97, p.D13)(SFC, 9/21/05, p.F3)
1867 There was anti-Chinese
violence in SF and Chinese laborers were driven from work and their
homes were destroyed by whites angry over the economic conditions.
(SFEC, 9/20/98, Z1 p.4)
1867 Trans-Pacific trade was
pioneered when the Pacific Mail Steamship Co. dispatched the 300-foot
steamship Colorado from SF to Yokohama and Hong Kong.
(SFEC, 11/22/98, p.B1)
1868 Jan 12, Snow fell in SF and
accumulated to 2 inches.
(SFEM, 12/22/96, p.20)
1868 Mar 27, John Muir (30)
arrived by steamer in San Francisco and almost immediately set off on a
300-mile journey to Yosemite Valley along with Englishman Joseph
Chilwell.
(SSFC, 4/2/06, p.B1)(SSFC, 5/14/06, p.B3)
1868 Mar 31, Anson Burlingame,
head of the Chinese Embassy, arrived in SF for a month-long stay.
(Ind, 8/11/01, 5A)
1868 Sep 1, In San Francisco the
Daily Dramatic Chronicle with widened coverage became the Morning
Chronicle.
(SFEC, 3/8/98, BR p.1)(SFC, 8/7/99, p.A8)(SSFC,
6/7/09, p.W2)
1868 Oct 21, An major earthquake,
later estimated at magnitude 7, took place on the Hayward Fault in
northern California. It destroyed the top of the San Mateo County
Courthouse. At this time only 265,000 people lived in the Bay Area.
(SMMB)(SFC, 6/13/96, p.C3)(SFC, 10/18/07, p.A15)
1868 The Oriental Warehouse was
built as a bonded warehouse for incoming trade from Asia. It was
damaged by fires in 1988 and 1994, and by the 1989 earthquake, but was
re-engineered to contain 66 live-work lofts and won a 1997
architectural award.
(SFEM, 2/22/98, p.11)
1868 The ship Balclutha was built
in Glasgow, Scotland. It was named in Gaelic for Clyde’s rock. For 16
years it sailed from the British Isles with a load of coal around Cape
Horn to SF where it picked up grain and returned to Europe. It was
later preserved at the National Maritime Museum in San Francisco. [1st
source said 1860]
(SFC, 5/28/96, p.A15)(SFEC,11/23/97, p.D3)
1868 The SF-San Jose railroad line
joined the Southern Pacific Railroad and became a part of the statewide
system.
(GTP, 1973, p.73)
1868-1871 Bret Harte edited the SF-based magazine
“Overland Monthly.”
(SFEC, 9/3/00, BR p.6)
1869 Jan 28, Cycling enthusiasts
took over the Mechanic's Pavilion to demonstrate pedal-driven bicycles
or velocipedes.
(Ind, 8/2/03, p.5A)
1869 Jun 24, Mary Ellen "Mammy"
Pleasant officially became the Voodoo Queen in San Francisco,
California.
(HN, 6/24/99)
1869 Aug 18, Joshua Norton, aka
Emperor Norton, in a proclamation in the Oakland Daily News ordered
that a bridge be built between San Francisco and Oakland. This notice
was later considered a forgery. [see 1872]
(http://www.notfrisco.com/nortoniana/)
1869 Sep 22, The Cincinnati Red
Stockings, the first professional baseball team, arrived in San
Francisco after a rollicking, barnstorming tour of the West.
(HN, 9/22/98)
1869 The Spreckels family, sugar
and steamer mavens, built a mansion in Pacific Heights. It was valued
at $1.9 million in 1998.
(SFEC, 2/1/98, p.A14)(SFEM, 1/30/00, p.10)
1869 In SF the Original firehouse
No. 1 was built. It was destroyed during the 1906 earthquake and
rebuilt. In 1958 adman Howard Gossage bought it from the city at
auction.
(SFC, 3/28/09, p.C2)
1869 Second Street was carved
through the west edge of Rincon Hill to connect downtown and the
southern waterfront.
(SSFC, 6/15/03, p.A11)
1869 In San Francisco the Portola
district formally began when a group called the University Homestead
Association named a 263-foot hill University Mound and laid out streets
named Oxford, Harvard, Yale, Amherst, Princeton, Dartmouth, Holyoke and
Bowdoin.
(SSFC, 5/24/09, p.A2)
1869 China Basin began showing up
on maps at this time. Ships arrived here from New York and China.
(SFEM, 4/9/00, p.10)
1869 A depression hit after the
completion of the trans-continental railroad and the Chinese became a
target of ill-will as unemployment soared. In San Francisco they
withdrew to a single area for self-protection and started businesses
that would not seem threatening to their Caucasian neighbors. This was
the beginning of Chinatown.
(SFC, 5/19/96,City Guide, p.17)
1869 The Pacific Lumber Company
was founded. It was headquartered in San Francisco.
(SFC, 9/4/96, p.A4)
1869 Timothy Guy Phelps, former
state Senator and US Congressman, was appointed Collector of Customs in
SF. He served a term under Pres. Grant and another term under Pres.
Harrison (1869-1872, 1890-1892).
(Ind, 7/13/02, 5A)
1869 Gustave Niebaum and others
incorporated the Alaska Commercial Company with offices at Sansome and
Halleck. Its plan was to consolidate fur-trading and natural resources
operations under a single umbrella.
(SFEM, 10/31/99, p.26)
1870 In San Francisco a
shipwright’s house was built about this time at Hunters Point. In 2005
the SF Landmark Preservation Advisory Board approved it as SF Landmark
No. 250.
(SFC, 5/13/05, p.F2)
1870 In San Francisco a
Norman-style castle, later known as the Albion Castle and Brewery, was
built as a brewery at 881 Innes Ave. In 1940 it became the home of a
mountain springs water company, which bottled fresh water flowing
underneath. In 2005 it sold for $2.1 million and was put on the market
in 2009 for $2.95 million.
(SFC, 12/15/09, p.D2)
1870 In San Francisco Battery
East, a three-quarter mile earth barrier with masonry enforcements was
built at Fort Point to guard the bay.
(Ind, 7/13/99, p.11A)
1870 Sherman Clay & Co was
founded in SF. It grew to become the nation’s largest piano retailer.
Levander Sherman bought the shop where he repaired music boxes.
(SFC, 9/9/96, p.C1)(SFC, 6/22/01, WBb p.9)
1870 SF Supervisors designated the
“Outside Lands” of the city for a new park. The Golden Gate Park
commission held its first meeting under the efforts of mayor Frank
McCoppin. The mayor was the principal stockholder in the SF Grading
Co., and the firm wanted the city contracts for grading the park and
transporting the dirt.
(SFC, 7/29/97, p.A5,6,8)(Ind, 10/28/00,5A)
1870 The “Act to Provide for the
Improvement of Public Parks in the city of San Francisco” created
Golden Gate park.
(SFC, 6/26/02, p.A18)
1870 Seven private horsecar
companies competed on SF city streets.
(SFC, 10/6/99, p.A4)
1870 By this time SF was the 10th
largest US city with a population of 150,000.
(SFEC, 2/9/97, p.W4)(SFC, 8/7/99, p.A8)
1870s The Albion Brewery at 881
Innes Ave. in Hunters Point was built of stones that served as ship
ballast. Albion ale was made with water from springs that ran
underneath and the Albion Water Co. next door later sold bottled water
from the springs.
(SFC, 10/17/98, p.A19)
1870s The Fairmont district was
developed on the site of the Fairmont Dairy between Noe Valley and
Glenn Park.
(CAS, 1996, p.18)
1870s A depression hit the country
following the Civil War.
(SFEC, 9/21/97, p.C7)
1871 The first light station for
the Brothers Islands in San Pablo Bay was constructed. The islands were
notorious for shipwrecks up to this time.
(SFEM, 3/16/97, p.37)
1871 The California Historical
Society was founded with 25 members. It was originally a men’s club and
many of its records were destroyed in the 1906 SF earthquake and fire.
It was later located at 678 Mission near Third. 415-357-1848. Open
Tuesday-Saturday 11-5.
(SFC, 8/30/96, p.D5)(SFEC,10/26/97, DB p.55)
1871 The San Francisco Art
Association was founded.
(SFEM, 11/24/96, p.8)(SFC, 5/30/03, p.E7)
1871 Podesta Baldocchi began
peddling flowers in SF. The firm was sold to Gerald Stevens Inc., a
national chain, in 1999.
(SFC, 9/8/99, p.D1)
1871 Carleton Watkins opened the
Yosemite Art Gallery at 22-26 Montgomery where he displayed his
photographic work as art. He went bankrupt and sold his work to
photographer I.W. Taber.
(SFEC, 5/23/99, DB p.42)
1871 William Hammond Hall was
appointed the 1st Superintendent of Golden Gate Park and stated:
“Destroy a public building and it can be rebuilt in a year; destroy a
city woodland park and all the people living at the time will have
passed away before its restoration can be effected.” Hall created the
park’s original design over sand dunes known as the “Outside Lands.”
(SFC, 7/28/97, p.A8)(SFC, 7/29/97, p.A7)
1871 The California State Normal
School in SF was moved to San Jose at the urging of a local railroad
line and Oscar Fitzgerald, superintendent of public instruction.
(SFEC, 3/21/99, Z1 p.4)
1871 The 1st electric light in SF
was shown from a window of St. Ignatius on Market St.
(SFCM, 2/6/05, p.3)
1871-1880 Union Square was cleared and redesigned as
a formal strolling garden. It was surrounded by churches and residences.
(SSFC, 7/21/02, p.F2)
1872 May, Andrew Smith Hallidie
started excavation on Caly St. for a cable car system.
(ON, 10/03, p.9)
1872 Jul 2, Jacob W. Davis of
Reno, Nevada, sent Levi Strauss & Co. in San Francisco a sample of
his work pants and a business proposal for Strauss to apply for a
patent in exchange for a half share in the patent. Davis soon sold his
half share to Strauss and moved to San Francisco to supervise the
manufacture of the work pants.
(ON, 4/05, p.11)
1872 Aug 23, The 1st Japanese
commercial ship visited SF carrying tea.
(MC, 8/23/02)
1872 Julia Morgan, architect, was
born in San Francisco and raised in Oakland.
(SFC, 7/18/00, p.A8)
1872 Albert Bierstadt painted
"Seal Rocks, San Francisco."
(SFC, 4/21/99, p.E1)
1872 St. Patrick’s Church moved to
Mission between 3rd and 4th. It was destroyed in the 1906 earthquake
and rebuilt in Gothic Revival style in 1914. [see Mar 17, 1983]
(SFEC, 11/1/98, p.C1)
1872 The First Congregational
Church of SF moved to Post and Mason. The brick Gothic church was
seriously damaged in the 1906 earthquake. A new structure was opened in
1915. The Congregation sold the facility in 2001 with only 60 active
members.
(SFC, 7/24/99, p.A17)(SFC, 4/23/01, p.A14)
1872 The San Francisco Bohemian
Club was founded by 5 newspapermen, a Shakespearean actor, a vintner
and a local merchant. The Bohemian grove, a 2,700 acre redwood grove on
the Russian River, became their summer encampment. In 1974 John van der
Zee authored “The Greatest Men’s Party on Earth.”
(SFC, 1/24/02, p.A18)(WSJ, 7/15/04, p.A1)(SSFC,
7/18/04, p.A18)
1872 Mar, Joshua Norton, aka
Emperor Norton, ordered SF and Oakland citizens to build a suspension
bridge across the bay. His similar Aug 19, 1869, proclamation was later
considered a forgery.
(SFC, 12/15/04, p.A1)(www.notfrisco.com/nortoniana/)
1873 Mar 17, St. Patrick’s Church
opened on Mission St.
(SSFC, 6/10/01, p.A22)
1873 May 20, Levi Strauss of San
Francisco and Jacob Davis of Reno, Nevada, received a patent for
miners’ work pants that included rivets to reinforce the pockets.
(SFC, 4/29/03, B1)(SFC, 1/23/04, p.A10)(ON, 4/05,
p.12)
1873 Jun 2, Ground was broken on
Clay St. in SF for the world's 1st cable railroad.
(SC, 6/2/02)
1873 Aug 2, Inventor Andrew S.
Hallidie successfully tested a cable car he had designed for the city
of San Francisco. Various references give the date of this event as
Aug. 1, but more recent research points to Aug. 2. Hallidie made the
first cable car trip aboard his Nob Hill Line at 4 a.m. It traveled
down Clay St. from Knob Hill to Kearney.
(SFC, 8/1/98, p.A16)(AP, 8/2/06)
1873 Nov 4, Dentist John Beers of
SF patented the gold crown.
(MC, 11/4/01)
1873 In SF the city’s
International Hotel, built in 1854, moved from Jackson Street to 848
Kearny.
(SSFC, 8/19/07, p.B1)
1873 A stately home at 1882
Washington St. at Franklin was built. It was purchased in 1905 by
banker Antoine Borel.
(Ind, 4/5/03, 5A)
1873 The South End Rowing Club was
established south of Market. In 1938 it moved to Aquatic Park. The club
was established following the victory of 6 Irishmen over rowers at the
Golden state Rowing club.
(SFC, 7/3/97, p.A23)(SFC, 8/8/98, p.A17)(SFCM,
1/25/04, p.12)
1873 Toland Medical College became
affiliated with the new Univ. of California.
(UCSF, Spring, 2003)
1873 In SF Mifflin Gibbs, the
owner of a boot shop at 636 Clay St., was elected as San Francisco’s
1st black judge.
(SFC, 7/2/07, p.B2)
1873 Gustave Niebaum (31),
founding director of the Alaska Commercial Company, married Susan
Shingleberger.
(SFEM, 10/31/99, p.27)
1874 Mar 26, Robert Frost, poet
(d.1963), was born in San Francisco. Robert Lee Frost, American poet.
In a biography of Frost by Jeffrey Myers: “Robert Frost: A Biography,”
the author claims that Frost moved his birthday up a year to make
himself legitimate. A 3-volume biography by Lawrence Thompson was
completed in 1976. Myers reveals that Frost’s lover, Kay Morrison, was
also involved with Lawrence Thompson, but that that would not be
disclosed in the Thompson biography. "Before I built a wall I'd ask to
know What I was walling in or walling out." [see Mar 26, 1875]
(WUD, 1994, p.571)(HN, 3/25/98)(AP, 3/26/97)(AP,
11/9/98)
1874 May 20, Levi Strauss began
marketing blue jeans with copper rivets at $13.50 per doz.
(HN, 5/20/98)(SFC, 8/28/98, p.B4)(MC, 5/20/02)
1874 The Baldwin Hotel at the
corner of Powell and Market was constructed with ice skating rinks and
swimming pools. It burned to the ground in 1898 and was succeeded by
the Flood Building.
(Ind, 2/20/99, p.5A)(SFC, 7/4/03, p.E1)
1874 The San Francisco Federal
Mint building opened at 5th and Mission. It was designed by Alfred
Mullett, the Treasury’s supervising architect.
(SFC, 7/5/97, p.A13)(SSFC, 1/28/03, p.E1)
1874-1946 Gertrude Stein, writer, was born. Her older
brother, Michael, managed the family business, which included San
Francisco’s Market Street railway line. Her parents were Daniel and
Milly. Her relationship with her brother, Leo (1872-1947), abruptly
ended in 1914. Her work included “G.M.P.” and “Tender Buttons.” The
40-year relationship between Gertrude and Leo is told by Brenda
Wineapple in “Sister Brother, Gertrude and Leo Stein.”
(SFEC, 8/11/96, DB, p.10)
1875 Mar 26, Poet Robert Frost was
born in San Francisco. [see Mar 26, 1874]
(AP, 3/26/97)
1875 Aug 27, William C. Ralston’s
body was pulled from the SF Bay in a case of likely suicide. He had
built the Palace Hotel, was the founder of the Bank of California and
had a sprawling estate in Belmont. William Sharon was named Ralston’s
executor and became master of Ralston’s estate.
(SFEC, 11/17/96, p.C4)(Ind, 7/1/00,5A)
1875 Aug, The Bank of California,
headed by William C. Ralston, collapsed.
(Ind, 7/1/00,5A)
1875 Sep 9, On Admission Day
Charlotte Mignon (Lotta) Crabtree, the “California Girl,” dedicated a
fountain to SF that was placed at Market and Kearney. She had acquired
her reputation dancing on top of barrels in saloons. The fountain was
cast in Philadelphia and shipped around Cape Horn to SF. It was modeled
after a lighthouse prop from a forgotten play called “Zip.” In 1998 the
fountain was disassembled for a 4-month repair job.
(SFC, 4/10/98, p.A1)(SFC, 12/2/98, p.A1,22)
1875 In San Francisco the Ferry
House, predecessor to the Ferry Building, was built. It was a 350-foot
wooden shed and was soon replaced. In 1998 Nancy Olmsted published "The
Ferry Building: Witness to a Century of Change."
(SFEC, 12/20/98, BR p.2)
1875 The Palace Hotel opened in
San Francisco. It was destroyed in the 1906 earthquake. A new Palace
Hotel opened in 1909.
(SFC, 8/21/09, p.A10)
1875 In San Francisco a picture by
Walter Yeager depicted the California St. offices of Lazard Freres:
Bankers.
(SFC, 12/11/96, p.D1)
1875 A Marine Hospital was built
in the Presidio area of San Francisco. An adjacent cemetery operated at
the site from about 1981 to 1912. In 1931 the country’s marine
hospitals were renamed Public Health Service Hospitals. The structure
was replaced by a new building in 1931 and by 1981 it was closed.
(SFC, 11/25/06, p.B5)
1875 James Lick, San Francisco
real estate magnate, ordered a pre-fabricated glass house for his
estate but died before it was erected. A group of wealthy men led by
Leland Stanford donated the glass house to Golden Gate Park, where it
became the Conservatory of Flowers. [see 1879]
(SFC, 5/19/96,City Guide, p.4)(SFC, 8/24/01, p.A23)
1875 William Sharon of SF was
elected to a 6-year term as Senator from Nevada. It is believed that he
spent some $1 million to get elected.
(Ind, 7/1/00,5A)
1876 Jan 12, Jack London (d.1916),
American writer and adventurer, was born in SF at 3rd and Brannon. The
original home burned down in the 1906 fire. He is best known for his
dog novels "The Call of the Wild" and “White Fang.”
(HFA, '96, p.22)(AHD, p.768)(HN, 1/12/99)(SFC,
1/10/03, p.E6)
1876 Jul 4, 1st public exhibition
of electric light in SF.
(Maggio, 98)
1876 Dec 7, Colonel Hayward,
Vermont-born mining millionaire, remarried his wife Charity in SF.
(Ind, 12/8/01, 5A)
1876 The First Baptist
Congregation moved to Eddy St. between Jones and Leavenworth and 2
churches were built on the site. The 2nd one burned down in the 1906
fire.
(SFC, 11/18/99, p.A22)
1876 The California Maritime
Academy was founded. The Board of Supervisors and the Chamber of
Commerce proposed to train young criminals onboard the ship Jamestown
for work in the merchant naval service. Its history is told by Capt.
Walter W. Jaffee in "The Track of the Golden Bear, The California
Maritime Academy Schoolships."
(SFEM, 1/19/96, p.7)
1876 The SF Native Sons fraternal
order was founded.
(SFC, 2/22/96, p.A21)
1876 Pioneer Park on Telegraph
Hill was donated to the city by a group of citizens.
(SFC, 12/18/96, p.A23)
1876 B.E. Lloyd attributed the
high restaurant activity in the city to the high percentage of
residents living in rooming houses or hotels in the post-Gold Rush era.
(SFC, 6/19/96, zz1, p.1)
1876 Austin and Reuben Hills began
roasting coffee at the Bay City Market in SF. [see 1878]
(SSFC, 8/5/01, p.A1)
1876 Lazard Freres ceased
operations as a fabrics and hardware import-export company and
established itself as the bank: Lazard Freres & Co.
(SFC, 12/11/96, p.D1)
1876 The Livingston Brothers
department store was founded.
(SFC, 5/27/97, p.A22)
1876 Oil was struck in a well near
what later became Santa Clarita, California. It was sold to the Pacific
Coast Oil Co. of San Francisco in 1879, which eventually became Chevron.
(SSFC, 10/29/06, p.F6)
1876 James Lick, one of the
wealthiest men in SF and a notorious miser, died. He gave away most of
his wealth before dying and the elevated 101 freeway from the Bay
Bridge to Candlestick Point was later named in his honor as was the
Lick Observatory on Mt. Hamilton.
(SFC, 1/26/98, p.A11)
1877 Aug, In the midst of a
recession and the turmoil of anti-Chinese riots, San Franciscans
decided to build a public library.
(SFC, 4/14/96, EM, p.20)
1877 Cable cars began operating on
Powell Street.
(SSFC, 7/21/02, p.F2)
1877 The Dolphin Club, a rowing
organization, was founded by brewery owner Joseph Wieland.
(SFC, 7/3/97, p.A23)
1877 Felix Schoenstein, a German
immigrant and organ builder, founded the Schoenstein & Co. organ
builders in San Francisco.
(SSFC, 2/22/04, p.I3)
1877 Isaac Magnin and his wife
Mary Ann Cohen Magnin founded their first I. Magnin store in SF. The
original store was located on Market street. It moved to Grant Avenue
after the 1906 earthquake and in 1948 opened at Geary and Stockton in
the “Marble Lady,” designed by Timothy Pflueger. It merged with
Bullocks in 1944 and became a division of Federated Department Stores
in 1964. The store closed Jan 15, 1995.
(SSFC, 12/31/06, p.E5)
1877 The San Francisco Stock and
Bond Exchange moved into a building on Pine St.
(SSFC, 7/3/05, p.F3)
1877 Almost one-fourth of the
California labor force was unemployed. Anti-Chinese feelings in SF
resulted in several killings. The Sand Lot riots began under the
leadership of Denis Kearney, who organized mobs that attacked the
Chinese. The Chronicle newspaper called him “a political mad dog.”
These riots followed similar mob attacks in the Eastern States.
(SFEC, 9/20/98, Z1
p.4)(www.sfmuseum.org/hist2/kearneyism.html)
1877 Cable cars began operating on
Geary Street.
(SSFC, 7/21/02, p.F2)
1878 Jan 25, Off of San Francisco
the 3-masted clipper ship King Philip, built in Maine in 1856, was
towed by a tug through the Golden Gate and laid anchor to allow the tug
to assist a nearby vessel. The anchor failed and the King Philip
drifted onto sand at Ocean Beach, where it foundered. Remnants of the
ship appeared in 1980 and again in 2007.
(SFC, 5/8/07, p.B5)
1878 Mar 26, Hastings College of
Law was founded in SF. It was named after Serranus Clinton Hastings,
the 1st chief justice of the California Supreme Court.
(SS, 3/26/02)(SFCM, 10/26/03, p.8)
1878 Apr 10, The California St.
Cable Car RR Co. started service.
(MC, 4/10/02)
1878 Aug 3, Ambrose Bierce in the
SF Argonaut stated: There is no recorded instance of punishment for
shooting a newspaperman. The restrictions of the game law do not apply
to this class of game.”
(SFEC, 3/8/98, BR p.1)
1878 Isadora Duncan (d.1927), US
pioneer in modern dance, was born in San Francisco.
(WUD, 1994, p.442)(SFC, 7/18/00, p.A8)
1878 Henry Burgess painted “View
of San Francisco in 1850.”
(WSJ, 4/3/98, p.W10)
1878 Ephraim Burr (1809-1894),
former mayor of SF (1856-1859), built an Italianate house at 1772
Vallejo St.
(SFC, 5/5/07, p.B3)
1878 In SF a house was built at
2066 Pine Street. In 1921 it was turned into the Madame C.J. Walker
Home for Girls.
(SFC, 2/16/09, p.B2)
1878 The Big Four, Leland
Stanford, Collis P. Huntington, Mark Hopkins and Charles Crocker,
formed the city’s second cable car company, the California Street Cable
Railroad, to go from market St. to their mansions atop Nob Hill.
(SFC, 7/8/96, p.D1)
1878 The 1st SF telephone
directory, printed by the American Speaking Telephone Co., listed 168
entries on a single page.
(SFC, 9/2/05, p.F2)
1878 The clipper ship King Philip
was stranded on Ocean Beach at the foot of Ortega St.
(G, Winter 96/97, p.3)
1878 Austin and R.W. Hills founded
Hills Bros. Coffee in SF. [see 1876]
(SFC, 6/28/97, p.D2)(SFC, 6/5/08, p.C2)
1878 A waiter in SF concocted the
dish named chop suey for Li Hung-Chang, the first Chinese viceroy to
visit SF.
(SFEC, 3/8/98, p.W30)
1879 cJun 2, Henry Cogswell, an
eccentric dentist, buried a lead box time capsule at the foot of the
Benjamin Franklin statue in Washington Square. It was opened Apr 22,
1979 and contained a copy of The Call newspaper dated Jun 2, 1879,
Harper's Weekly dated May 1872, and books of poetry.
(SFEC, 1/2/00, p.D4)
1879 Jul 8, The first ship to use
electric lights departed from San Francisco, California.
(HN, 7/8/98)
1879 Sep 10, Pacific Coast Oil Co.
was founded in San Francisco by Lloyd Tevis, George Loomis and Charles
Felton. In 1906 it became Standard Oil Co. (California). In 1926 it
became Standard Oil Co. of California (Socal). In 1984 it became
Chevron Corp. In 2001 it became ChevronTexaco. In 2005 it was renamed
Chevron Corp.
(SFC, 10/20/04, p.C6)(SFC, 5/10/05, p.D1)
1879 Sep 20, Former Pres. Ulysses
S. Grant arrived in San Francisco aboard the steamship City of Tokio.
He was in a bad mood because a steward had just emptied a glass of
water with his false teeth through a porthole.
(Ind, 2/17/00, 5A)
1879 The ornate white frame of the
Conservatory of Flowers was imported from Ireland and erected. The
disassembled parts were purchased from the estate of SF millionaire
James Lick by Charles Crocker, who donated it to the city in 1875.
(BS, 5/3/98, p.5R)(Ind, 10/28/00,5A)
1879 The San Francisco Free Public
Library was opened in Pacific Hall on Bush St., between Kearny and
Dupont (later Grant) streets.
(SFC, 4/14/96, EM, p.20)
1879 The 1st SF bicycle tournament
was held at the Mechanics Pavilion. The 400-mile event required 2,400
circuits. The winner won $500 after a 72-hour ride.
(Ind, 8/2/03, p.5A)
1879 Abby Fisher, one of 18 pickle
manufacturers, was recognized for “best display of pickles” and won $5
prize money.
(SFC, 6/19/96, zz1, p.1)
1879 Police arrested dancer Mabel
Santly for indecent exposure following a vilification of the Can-can by
the SF Chronicle. She was fined $300 for failing to keep her skirts
around her ankles.
(SFEM,11/30/97, p.20)
1879 Adolph Sutro returned to SF
after becoming a millionaire from building a tunnel to drain and
ventilate the silver mines of the Nevada Comstock Lode.
(G, Winter 98/99, p.1)
1880 cJan 8, Emperor Norton died
and had an elaborate funeral sponsored by the Pacific Union Club at a
cost of $10,000. His remains were later moved from the Masonic Cemetery
to Woodlawn Cemetery with a marble tombstone inscribed: Norton
I...Emperor of the United States and Protector of Mexico. Joshua A.
Norton 1815-1880. Dr. Robert Burns Aird (d.2000) later composed a
musical based on Norton's life. The organization E Clampus Vitius later
proceeded to hold an annual memorial services at his Colma grave site.
(HFA, '96, p.65)(G&M, 7/30/97, p.A24)(SFC,
2/22/00, p.A20)(CHA, 1/2001)
1880 Jan 28, Henry Casebolt, San
Francisco inventor of the cable car grip, sold his interest in the
Sutter Street Railway.
(www.cable-car-guy.com/html/ccwho.html#hxc)
1880 Apr, Isaac M. Kalloch, son of
the mayor, shot and killed Charles de Young in SF Chronicle offices.
Michael de Young took over. Isaac Kalloch, pastor of the Metropolitan
Temple on 5th St. had earlier insulted de Young, who in turn had shot
and wounded Kalloch. Kalloch was elected mayor with the support of
Denis Kearney.
(SFC, 8/7/99, p.A8)
1880 Peter B. Kyne (d.1957),
author, was born in San Francisco and grew up in San Mateo County. He
wrote 25 novels and over 1,000 short stories, a number of which were
turned into Hollywood movies.
(Ind, 7/19/03, p.3A)
1880 Julian Rix painted “Hay Scow
on San Francisco Bay.”
(SFEC,10/26/97, DB p.55)
1880 Thomas Blythe, a Welsh
drifter who made a fortune in SF real estate, built a mansion at 1000
Chestnut St. It was torn down in 1954 to make room for a 14-story
apartment house.
(SFC, 8/6/04, p.F6)
1880 The Mechanic's Fair stamped
as obscene a French painting by Gabriel Guay, "The Awakening." Visitors
voted to keep the painting in the exhibit.
(SFEC, 4/11/99, p.30)
1880 US Pres. Rutherford Hayes
lunched at the Cliff House in SF.
(SSFC, 8/21/05, p.A1)
1880 George Hearst purchased the
SF Daily Evening Examiner newspaper to advertise his political beliefs.
Hearst won the Examiner as payment for a gambling debt.
(SFC, 8/7/99, p.A9)(WSJ, 8/9/99, p.B9)(CHA, 1/2001)
1880-1889 The San Francisco Belt Line began operating
during this period to move freight from ships docked at the port for
trans-shipment by rail.
(SSFC, 10/18/09, p.A2)
1880s Henry D. Cogswell (d.1900),
dentist, made a fortune in SF real estate. He was a man of temperance
and financed a number of fountains that were donated to cities in
America, including the one in Washington D.C. on 7th St.
(HT, 4/97, p.80)
1880s Rev. Joseph Worcester, a
Swedenborgian minister and architectural theorist, built the 1st
"Rustic"-style homes on Russian Hill. He inspired such architects as
Ernest Coxhead, Bernard Maybeck, A. Page Brown and Willis Polk.
(SFCM, 8/3/03, p.15)
1880s The Board of Health ordered
all cattle to be removed from the city limits. Until this time most the
city’s milk came from the Cow Hollow area.
(SFEC, 3/8/98, p.W30)
1881 A Casino was constructed in
Goldengate Park.
(SFC, 7/29/97, p.A6)
1881 Adolph Sutro bought most of
San Francisco’s western headlands. Sutro acquired 2200 acres of land
around the Cliff House which had become a disreputable entertainment
hall. Sutro bought the Cliff House and the adjacent 80 acres to develop
a seaside attraction that included the Sutro Baths.
(SFC, 5/19/96,City Guide, p.6)(G, Winter 98/99,
p.1)(SFC, 4/14/99, Z1 p.4)
1881 The city directory indicated
233,959 residents, 428 restaurants, 342 oyster saloons, 18 oyster
dealers, 90 coffee saloons, 299 bakeries, 254 retail butchers, 205
fresh fruit sellers, some 1400 grocers and an equal number of bars, 40
brewers and 15 champagne importers.
(SFC, 6/19/96, zz1, p.1)
1881 “What Mrs. Fisher Knows About
Southern Cooking” by Abby Fisher was published by the San Francisco
Women’s Co-operative Printing Office.
(SFC, 6/19/96, zz1, p.1)
1881 Joseph Brandenstein opened a
coffee company in SF, naming it after his son Michael J. Brandenstein
and Co. The name was later shortened to MJB Inc.
(SFC, 6/28/97, p.D2)(SFC, 6/5/08, p.C2)
1882 Apr 10, Capt. William Matson
sailed the schooner Emma Claudina through the Golden Gate toward
Hawaii. Matson had just founded his shipping company to cover service
between San Francisco and Hawaii.
(SSFC, 2/18/07, DB p.58)
1882 Jul 4, Telegraph Hill
Observatory opened in SF.
(Maggio, 98)
1882 Sep 18, The Pacific Stock
Exchange was founded in SF as Local Security Board in the basement of
Wohl & Pollitz at 403 California.
(SFC, 7/14/98, p.B1)(SFC, 7/24/98, p.B1)
1882 Dec 31, Snow fell in SF and
accumulated to 3.5 inches.
(SFEM, 12/22/96, p.20)
1882 Frederick Layman received
financing for a short-lived cable car line up Kearny St.
(SFC, 11/27/00, p.A18)
1882 A railway began service from
Second and Market to Daly City.
(SFC, 4/20/01, WBb p.7)
1882 The Golden Gate Park Band was
founded in San Francisco and began performing annual concerts in Golden
Gate Park.
(SFC, 7/3/96, p.E1)
1882 The First Presbyterian Church
moved into a gothic style wooden building at Van Ness and Sacramento.
It was destroyed in the 1906 fire.
(SFC, 5/20/99, p.A19)
1882 Oscar Wilde visited SF for a
series of lectures.
(SFEC,11/16/97, DB p.3)
1882 The SF military base was
re-named Fort mason after former Gov. Richard Barnes Mason.
(SFC, 10/4/02, p.E1)
1882 Union Iron Works, founded by
Peter Donohue, moved into the area of SF, 22nd and Third St., that
later came to be known as Dogpatch. The works later became Bethlehem
Steel, Todd Yard, Southwest Marine and SF Drydock (Pier 70). In 2000 it
was the oldest operating civilian shipyard in the US.
(SFC, 3/29/00, p.A17)(SSFC, 7/3/05, p.F2)
1883 Local artists put 8 paintings
of nudes into the Mechanic's Fair exhibit. Jeweler A.W. Stott, the only
one of 3 jury members available, banned the paintings. A.S. Hallidie
was busy watching his cable car business and M.A. Doirn was busy with
his law office.
(SFEM, 4/11/99, p.32)
1883 Frona Eunice Wait announced a
plan to find a "California Venus," whose image would be immortalized in
marble by sculptor Rupert Schmid. The plan failed but Schmid did find
Miss Marian Nolan, 23 ½, 32 ½, 38 ½. He made a
plaster cast of her a year later and took it to Italy to be cut in
Carrara marble.
(SFEM, 4/11/99, p.34)
1883 Lutherans of Northern
California came together to celebrate the 400th anniversary of Martin
Luther’s birthday. This led to the 1945 formation of the Lutheran
Welfare Council.
(SFC, 9/15/98, p.A9)
1883 The Salvation Army came to
SF. In 1886 they opened a facility in the Tenderloin.
(SFC, 9/15/98, p.A9)(SFC, 6/28/08, p.B1)
1883 In San Francisco Army Major
W.A. Jones created a plan to transform the Presidio into a forested
park-like reserve. In 1886 the Army began planting blue gum
eucalyptus to serve as a windbreak on the ridges of the Presidio.
(SFC, 7/6/04, p.A1)(SFC, 5/25/09, p.A8)
1883 The central dome of the glass
house in Golden Gate Park was destroyed by fire. A new, higher dome
replaced the original.
(SFC, 5/19/96,City Guide, p.4)
1884 Feb 7, Snow fell in SF and
accumulated to 1-2 inches.
(SFEM, 12/22/96, p.20)
1884 Apr 22, Thomas Stevens
(b.1853) started the 1st bicycle trip to cross the US from SF. He later
continued around world (2 yrs 9 mos). He purchased a bicycle with a
50-inch diameter front wheel from Col. Albert Pope of Hartford, Conn.,
for $110 the price of a horse and buggy.
(MC, 4/22/02)(ON, 9/03, p.9)
1884 Sep 20, The Equal Rights
Party was formed during a convention of suffragists in San Francisco.
The convention nominated Belva Ann Bennett Lockwood of Washington,
D.C., for president.
(AP, 9/20/97)
1884 Dec 24, A trial judge,
following an 81-day trial, decided that Senator William Sharon was
legally married to Sarah Althea Hill, and that she was entitled to a
divorce, alimony and community property. A Nevada Circuit Court
reversed the decision in 1885.
(Ind, 7/1/00,5A)
1884 In SF Sts. Peter and Paul
Church was built in North Beach at the corner of Grant and Filbert. It
was destroyed in the 1906 earthquake and rebuilt in 1924 on Washington
Square.
(SSFC, 5/17/09, DB p.50)
1884 A Victorian mansion was built
on the corner of Bush and Jones streets. It perished in the 1906 fire
but a replica, the Carter House, was built by the Carter Family in
Eureka, Ca.
(SFEC, 4/13/97, p.T5)
1884 Patrick William Riordan
succeeded Archbishop Alemany as Archbishop of SF and served until 1914.
(SSFC, 7/27/03, p.A22)
1884 A block-long, brick machine
shop building was built on Third St. and Illinois.
(SFEC, 12/12/04, p.10)
1884 Hibernia Bank was founded in
SF.
(SFC, 3/25/05, p.F2)
1884 An amusement area in SF named
Ocean Beach Pavilion began.
(SSFC, 7/3/05, p.F1)
1884 In SF, Ca., Adolph Spreckels,
son of sugar-baron Claus Spreckels, attempted to kill Michael de Young
due to a Chronicle story that accused his father of swindling
shareholders. Spreckles was acquitted.
(SFC, 8/15/05, p.C5)
1884 The Arctic Oil Works opened
at the foot of Sixteenth and Illinois Street in Mission Bay. It was one
of the largest whale processing factories in the world and the building
was one of the very first reinforced concrete structures in the United
States. It was built by Ernest Ransome.
(http://tinyurl.com/2vznaq)
1884 British interests purchased
half the California operations of Lazar Freres and this led to the
establishment of the London, Paris and American Bank. This ultimately
became part of Crocker National Bank and then Wells Fargo.
(SFC, 12/11/96, p.D1)
1884 The population of SF was
about 225,000 people.
(SFEM, 3/2/97, p.10)
1884 John Parrot, SF millionaire
banker and merchant, died.
(Ind, 11/24/01, 5A)
1885 Nov 13, Former Nevada Senator
William Sharon died.
(Ind, 7/1/00,5A)
1885 Dec, A Nevada Circuit court
reversed the 1884 ruling against William Sharon and ruled that the
marriage certificate and letters of Sarah Althea Hill were forgeries.
Hill later married one of her attorneys, David Terry.
(Ind, 7/1/00,5A)
1885 Charles Rollo Peters painted
“Italian Fisherman’s Wharf,” a scene of the congested SF harbor.
(SFC, 5/30/01, p.E3)
1885 Jules Harder, 1st chef of the
SF Palace Hotel, authored “The Physiology of Taste: Harder’s Book of
Practical American Cookery.”
(SFC, 9/7/05, p.F4)
1885 In San Francisco a 4-level
Victorian was built at 3086 Washington St. In 2009 the 4,851
square-foot house listed for $6.45 million following renovations.
(SFC, 10/14/09, p.C3)(SFL)
1885 The James A. Garfield
monument on Kennedy Drive in San Francisco’s golden Gate Park was
erected by the offerings of a “grateful people.”
(SFC, 12/30/96, p.A13)(SFL)
1885 In San Francisco Adolph Sutro
opened Sutro Heights to the public. The estate was dotted with European
statues. He went on to build the Sutro Baths, a 3-acre glass palace.
(G, Winter 98/99, p.2)
1885 St. Dominic’s Church in San
Francisco’s Western Addition was built.
(SFC, 4/23/98, p.A19)(SFL)
1885 San Francisco brewery owner
Joseph Wieland died in a fire. His heirs commissioned a new boat for
the Dolphin Club, which he had founded; the 40-foot Joseph Wieland
rowing vessel was built by Al Rogers.
(SFC, 7/3/97, p.A23)
1885 William Sharon, US senator
and silver millionaire, died. He bequeathed $60,000 for the
construction of a children’s playground in San Francisco’s Golden Gate
Park.
(Ind, 10/28/00, 5A)
1886 Apr, In San Francisco school
children on Arbor Day planted the first trees of the Presidio forest.
Adolph Sutro enlisted schoolchildren to help plant eucalyptus, acacia,
Monterey pine and Monterey cypress trees in Glen Park. The 904-foot
Mount Parnassus, owned by Sutro, was also planted.
(G, Winter, p.3)(SFC, 5/26/00, Wb p.8)(SFC, 6/20/00,
p.A1)
1886 Jul 4, St. Peter’s Church on
Alabama St. was dedicated. It burned down in 1997 and was rebuilt in
2000.
(SFC, 6/30/00, p.A1)
1886 In San Francisco Adolph Sutro
opened his Sutro Baths. The huge glass enclosure had room for 1,600
bathers. Late in his life the former mayor donated the Sutro Library to
the city. It was made up of a 50,000-volume genealogy collection,
medieval Jewish tests, books and documents from the Italian
Renaissance, the papers of British explorer Joseph Banks, a labor
archive and other collections.
(SFC, 5/19/96,City Guide, p.6)
1886 In San Francisco the 13-room
Haas-Lilienthal House was built at 2007 Franklin. Architect Peter R.
Schmidt built the 24-room house of fir and redwood for Bertha and
William Haas, a mercantile grocer, for $18,500.
(SFC, 7/17/96, z-1, p.2)(SFC, 8/30/96, p.D5)
1886 In San Francisco the Union
Iron Works red brick machine shop was built across from the dry dock
gate at Pier 70. It closed in 2004 due to seismic issues. In 2009 plans
were made public for the redevelopment of the area.
(SSFC, 7/3/05, p.F2)(SFC, 7/11/09, p.A6)
1886 In SF the Fior d’Italia
restaurant began to serve clients for a nearby North Beach bordello. In
February 2005 the restaurant was burned out of its Washington Square
location. It re-opened in November on Mason Street at the former San
Remo Hotel.
(SFC, 4/23/02, p.A1)(SFC, 11/23/05, p.B5)
1886 In SF the North Beach jewelry
business, later run by Rocco Matteucci (d.1959), was founded.
(SFC, 10/21/99, p.A24)
1886 Aaron Shenson started a meat
business. In 1953 the H. Shenson Wholsesale Meat Co. moved to a new
plant at 1040 Bryant St., SF.
(SFC, 12/19/03, p.E2)
1886-1896 The Haight Street Grounds ballpark commonly
drew crowds of 15,000 to 20,000.
(SFEC,12/797, Z1 p.4)
1887 Jan, Thomas Stevens returned
to SF following a world tour and a 103 day bicycle ride from SF to
Boston.
(SFCM, 8/3/03, p.15)
1887 Feb 5, Snow fell in SF and
accumulated officially to 3.7 inches.
(SFEM, 12/22/96, p.20)
1887 Mar 4, William Randolph
Hearst (23) became "Proprietor" of the SF Examiner newspaper.
(SFC, 8/7/99, p.A9)
1887 Apr 29, William Randolph
Hearst received the SF Examiner newspaper on his 24th birthday. He
proceeded to found the Hearst Corporation with help from his father,
Senator George Hearst. The elder Hearst had amassed wealth from the
Comstock mines of Nevada.
(SFC, 4/14/99, p.A19)(CHA, 1/2001)
1887 Apr, There was a big fire at
Hotel Del Monte in Monterey. Hearst covered the story with an
extravagant 14-page extra edition.
(SFC, 8/7/99, p.A9)
1887 May 19, The Examiner’s 1st
major front-page crime story appeared under the headline “THUGS.”
(SFEM, 8/6/00, p.45)
1887 May 29, The Sunday Examiner
featured an article titled “Night Watches,” a description of activity
on Market Street from 7:30 p.m. to 5:30 a.m.
(SFEM, 8/6/00, p.46)
1887 May, Baseball scores began to
appear on the bottom of page one of the Examiner.
(SFEM, 8/6/00, p.44)
1887 Jun, The Examiner introduced
the novel “Allan Quatermain” by H. Rider Haggard in serialized form on
the front page.
(SFEM, 8/6/00, p.45)
1887 The Mansions Hotel, a
Victorian hotel in Pacific Heights was constructed. It is allegedly
haunted by a dark-haired mechante named Claudia, the shapely niece of
the original owner, Utah Senator Charles Chambers.
(SFE Mag, 5/5/96, p.A-7)
1887 The Orpheum Theater opened on
O’Farrell St.
(SFEC, 4/5/98, DB p.44)
1887 St. Boniface Church was
founded as a parish for German Catholics.
(SFC, 11/28/98, p.A19)
1887 John McLaren, a Scottish-born
landscape gardener, was hired by William Hammond Hall as assistant park
superintendent of Golden Gate Park. Hall was a surveyor who gave the
Park its initial design under plans pushed by Governor Haight and Mayor
McCoppin.
(SFC, 5/19/96,City Guide, p.4)(Ind, 10/28/00, 5A)
1887 The land at Stern Grove was
officially granted to the Greene family.
(SFC, 5/19/96,City Guide, p.6)
1887 John Tadich acquired the New
World Market Coffee Stand at 221 Leidesdorff.
(SFC, 6/19/96, zz1, p.1)
1887 In San Francisco a stranded
schooner carrying some 40 tons of dynamite exploded near the Cliff
House.
(SFC, 2/28/09, p.B3)
1888 Jan 16, Snow fell in SF and
accumulated to 0.1 inch.
(SFEM, 12/22/96, p.20)
1888 Jun 3, The poem “Casey at the
Bat” by Ernest Lawrence Thayer was 1st published in the SF Daily
Examiner. The poem was based on a game played in Stockton, Ca.
(SFC, 4/28/05, p.A1)(www.aaronshep.com/rt/RTE23.html)
1888 Dec, The “Sharon Quarters for
Children” was dedicated in Golden Gate Park. It was the 1st children’s
playground to be established in a public park in America.
(Ind, 10/28/00, 5A)
1888 Russian Czar Alexander III
donated bells to the Holy Trinity Cathedral on Powell near Columbus.
The Cathedral burned down in the 1906 quake and was rebuilt in 1909 and
1979 at 1520 Green St. In 1999 3 of the bells were stolen and returned.
(SFC, 8/30/99, p.A17,18)(SFC, 9/2/99, p.A21)
1888 In San Francisco the Bayview
Opera House was built at 4705 3rd Street. In 2007 a 3-year $4 million
renovation program was begun.
(SFC, 10/19/07, p.B1)
1888 A wooden Gothic Presbyterian
Church was erected in Noe Valley at 23rd and Sanchez. It later became
known as the Noe Valley Ministry.
(SFC, 3/18/05, p.F1)
1888 In SF a red-brick power plant
was built at 178 Townsend St. It later served as a hay mill, warehouse
and repair shop. In 2006 plans called for its conversion to 66
condominiums.
(SFC, 5/22/06, p.B1)
1889 Feb, The SF Examiner opened a
free employment service for white male and female applicants competing
for work with Chinese laborers.
(SFEM, 8/6/00, p.47)
1889 Aug 23, The 1st ship-to-shore
wireless message was received in US in SF.
(MC, 8/23/02)
1889 Nov 17, The Union Pacific
Railroad Co. began direct, daily railroad service between Chicago and
Portland, Ore., as well as Chicago and San Francisco.
(AP, 11/17/97)
1889 Nov 23, The first jukebox
made its debut in San Francisco, at the Palais Royale Saloon. The
contraption consisted of an Edison tinfoil phonograph with four
listening tubes and a coin slot for each tube.
(AP, 11/23/97)
1889 Dec 29, The SF Examiner
published a “prophecy edition,” a look at what life would be like in
1929. Predictions included an aluminum Bay Bridge, a canal across
Panama, a major SF fire in 1903, an earthquake in Boston, the expulsion
of all Chinese from the US, a fortress and wave-powered guns on the
Farallon Islands, and the invention of a “thermo-electric fog
dispeller.”
(SFEC, 3/15/98, p.W45)
1889 Hippolite d’Audiffred, a San
Francisco merchant, put up a building where Mission Street meets the
Embarcadero and named it after himself. It later became the home of the
Sailors Union of the Pacific and the Boulevard restaurant.
(SSFC, 1/4/09, p.A2)
1889 The first carousel was
constructed in Golden Gate Park.
(SFC, 7/29/97, p.A6)
1889 Willis Polk arrived in SF to
help A. Page Brown design the Ferry Building.
(SFCM, 8/3/03, p.16)
1889 The San Francisco Examiner
sent out reporter Allen Kelly to dispel the myth that grizzlies were
extinct in California. After 3 months he saw only one and failed to
capture it and was fired by Citizen Hearst via Western Union. Kelly
later wrote “Bears I Have Met -- and Others.” He later found a bear
captured on Gleason Mountain by a Mexican known as Mateo. The bear,
named Monarch, was brought back to SF and housed in a “pleasure garden
near Dolores and Market streets.”
(Pac. Disc., summer, ‘96, p.16,17)
1889 The California and Nevada
Railroad came through Orinda.
(SFCM, 3/30/03, p.6)
1889 Drewes Bros. meat market
opened on Church St.
(SFCM, 6/13/04, p.3)
1890 Jun 22, The SF Chronicle
trumpeted its new 10-story building at Kearny and Market, the first
steel-framed building in the West. It was designed by Burnham &
Root of Chicago. In 1924 the Chronicle moved to its new building at
Fifth and Mission. In 1962-1963 Home Mutual Savings and Loan draped the
De Young Building at 690 Market in metal. In 2004 planned renovations
included conversion to residential and hotel use.
(SFC, 3/17/04, p.C4)(SFC, 8/15/05, p.C5)(SFC,
1/17/09, p.E1)
1890 Aug 21, Bill Henry,
newscaster (Who Said That?), was born in SF, Calif.
(SC, 8/21/02)
1890 The officer’s quarters at the
Fort Point Coast Guard Station in the Presidio was built in Dutch
Colonial Revival style.
(SFC, 4/25/01, WB p.4)
1890 The Telegraph Hill
Neighborhood Center was founded by Elizabeth Ashe and Alice Griffith as
the city’s 1st settlement house for new immigrants. The 1st site was on
Vallejo St. a year later it was moved to 1736 Stockton St.
(SFC, 6/1/01, WBb p.3)(SFC, 6/7/01, p.A17)
1890 Attorney William W. Stow,
chief lobbyist for the Southern Pacific Railroad, was appointed
president of the SF park commission. He had earlier lobbied for 20
years to reduce revenues for Golden Gate Park. Stow ordered John
McLaren to proceed with a 1880 design for a reservoir on Strawberry
Hill and a lake below.
(Ind, 10/28/00, 5A)
1890 John McLaren (d.1943) took
over as Superintendent of Goldengate Park.
(SFC, 7/29/97, p.A5)
1890 The newly organized South San
Francisco Land and Improvement Company acquired titles to land around
Baden and began to promote a new town. The capital stock was $2 million
and the directors in the first year included: Gustavus J. Swift, Nelson
Morris, E.G. Martin of Chicago, Peter E. Iler, Henry Miller, E.R.
Lilienthal and Charles W. Smith of San Francisco.
(SSF, 1976, p.5)
1890s George M. Greene built the
Trocadero Inn at Stern Grove. It had a restaurant, boating pavilion,
beer garden, open-air dancing, a rowing lake, a trout farm, and a deer
park. He closed it upon Prohibition.
(SFC, 5/19/96,City Guide, p.6)
1890-1957 The ferryboat Eureka served the SF Bay.
(SFC, 10/3/97, p.A18)
1890s James Fair built a seawall
as part of a plan to square off 70 acres of shallow waters to create an
industrial park. The area remained under water until 1912 when it was
filled in for the Panama-Pacific Exposition. The Marina Development
Corp. later carved it into 634 residential lots.
(SFCM, 10/17/04, p.4)
1891 Jan 20, King David Kalakaua,
sovereign of the Hawaiian Islands, died at the SF Palace Hotel.
(SFEC, 11/17/96, p.C1)
1891 Feb 26, The 1st buffalo was
purchased for Golden Gate Park in SF under John McLaren. A pair of
bison, named Benjamin Harrison and Sarah Bernhardt, were settled in
Golden Gate Park following reports that only 1000 were left in the US.
(SFC, 12/13/99, p.A18)(SC, 2/26/02)(SFC, 10/30/08,
p.B1)
1891 Mar 9, Burglars at the
streetcar barns at Oak and Broderick poisoned 3 dogs. A monument to the
dogs was erected, but disappeared following the earthquake and fire of
1906. The monument was found and restored in 1929.
(SFC, 4/23/04, p.F5)
1891 Apr 25, Pres. Benjamin
Harrison visited SF.
(SS, 4/25/02)
1891 May 21, James J. Corbett
fought Peter "Black Prince" Jackson (1861-1901), in a much-heralded
bout between San Francisco cross-town rivals. Since Corbett and Jackson
were boxing instructors at the two most prestigious athletic clubs.
They fought to a draw after 61 rounds. Jackson had won the Australian
heavyweight championship in 1886 and the British Empire title in 1892.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_J._Corbett)
1891 Dec, In San Francisco
Salvation Army Capt. Joseph McFee used a large crab pot for the 1st
time at the Market St. ferry landing to solicit food for a charity
Christmas dinner to feed poor dockworkers and sailors. The organization
had come to the US in 1880.
(SFC, 12/1/04, p.A1)
1891 The Mills building went up at
the Montgomery, Pine and Bush intersection. It was rebuilt in 1909.
(SSFM, 10/12/02, p.13)
1891 Archbishop Alemany moved the
cathedral seat to Van Ness Ave. Old St. Mary’s on California St. became
a parish church. St. Mary’s Cathedral on Van Ness was completed by
contractor Owen Brady. It was destroyed by fire in 1962.
(SFC, 4/7/96, p.B-10)(SFC, 8/20/98, p.B4)(SFC,
1/21/05, p.B10)
1891 Sweeney Observatory was
dedicated in Goldengate Park.
(SFC, 7/29/97, p.A6)
1891 A statewide bond measure
raised almost $1 million for the construction of the Ferry Building
which was designed by Arthur Page Brown and finished in 1898. Brown
died before the building was completed. [see 1875]
(SFEC, 7/12/98, p.B1)
1892 Jan 21, Samuel Marsden
Brookes, English-born artist, died in SF. He emigrated to the US in
1833, settled in Chicago and moved to SF in 1862. He was a founder of
the SF Art Association and the Bohemian Club.
(SFCM, 10/28/01, p.20)
1892 Mar, The Stanford and UC
Berkeley football teams played their 1st “big game” in San Francisco at
the Haight Street Grounds. Stanford won 14-0. Legend says that Herbert
Hoover, Stanford manager and future US president, forgot the requisite
football and caused a several hour game delay.
(SFEC,12/797, p.B12)(Ind, 11/10/01, 5A)
1892 May 28, The Sierra Club was
organized in San Francisco.
(AP, 5/28/97)
1892 May 5, US Congress passed the
Geary Chinese Exclusion Act, which required Chinese in the United
States to be registered and carry an identity card or face deportation.
The Six Companies of San Francisco ordered all 110,000 immigrants to
refuse compliance.
(AP, 5/5/97)(SSFC, 6/3/07, p.M5)
1892 Jun 4, The Sierra Club was
incorporated in San Francisco.
(SFC, 5/25/96, p.A1)(AP, 6/4/97)
1892 Dec 17, The Stanford and UC
Berkeley football teams played their 2nd “big game” in San Francisco at
the Haight Street Grounds. They tied 10-10. The annual games continued
in SF until 1904.
(Ind, 11/10/01, 5A)
1892 Douglas Tilden made his
bronze sculpture “Tired Boxer.” His other work included the Mechanics
Monument and Fountain at Bush and Market streets, the California
Volunteers at Market and Dolores, Admission Day at Market and Post, as
well as Father Junipero Serra and the Baseball Player, which were
originally in Golden Gate Park. Mildred Albronda (d.1998 at 86) wrote
his definitive biography.
(SFC, 1/24/98, p.A13)(SFC, 12/2/98, p.A19)
1892 The Audiffred Building was
built at Mission and the Embarcadero.
(SFC, 4/21/05, p.B1)
1892 In SF the Trinity Episcopal
Church at Bush and Gough was completed. It was based on England’s
Durham Cathedral. The church was originally established in 1849. In
2009 the main sanctuary was mothballed due to seismic issues and the
lack of funds for repair.
(SFEM, 8/9/98, p.27)(SFC, 5/29/09, p.B1)
1892 Lloyd Lake was created in
Goldengate Park.
(SFC, 7/29/97, p.A6)
1892 A trolley line from SF
reached Daly’s Hill.
(LaPen, 12/86, p.5)
1892 Dr. Joseph Baird of Oakland
subdivided and sold a set of lots along Haight Street, site of the
Haight Street Grounds sports field.
(SFEC,12/797, p.B12)
1892 Hibernia Bank set up
headquarters in a temple-style building at 1 Jones St. and Market near
the SF Civic Center. In 2008 the building ,vacant since 2000, was sold
for $3.95 million.
(SFC, 3/25/05, p.F2)(SFC, 9/11/08, p.B1)
1892 Alice Eastwood moved to SF
and became co-curator at the Academy of Sciences.
(PacDis, Winter ’97, p.26)
1892 Sarah Althea Hill, former
mistress of William Sharon, was arrested in SF and charged with being
irrational. She was deemed insane and committed to an asylum in
Stockton, where she died in 1937.
(Ind, 7/1/00,5A)
1892 Mr. Crowley began a maritime
operation on the Bay with an $80 rowboat that grew to become the giant
Crowley Maritime Corp.
(SFC, 8/15/00, p.C8)
Go to
1893-1929