USA > California > San Francisco County > San Francisco > San Francisco, a history of the Pacific coast metropolis, Volume I > Part 20
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At the same time that immigrants from all quarters of the globe were pouring into California through its chief port, daily accessions to the population were received by the various land routes. The major part of this immigration was of
The Rush to California in 1849
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American origin, and no inconsiderable portion of it was from southern and south- western states, a circumstance which influenced the course of events in San Fran- cisco in succeeding years, and not always favorably. In 1852 a census was taken by authority of the legislature and the number of inhabitants of the state was ascertained to be 264,435, while that of the City and county of San Francisco was 36,751. It was asserted, however, that the enumeration was very imperfect owing to the shifting character of the population and that at the close of the year named San Francisco had fully 42,000 inhabitants.
The secretary of state in a report in which he abstracted the census returns noted that the population had increased at the annual rate of 30% during the two years preceding 1852, and indulged in some conjecture regarding the future. He assumed that it was reasonable to expect that the increase during the ensuing ten years would be at the rate of ten per cent annually, and that the population would be quadrupled within that period. His anticipations, however, were not fully realized, for at the time of the outbreak of the Civil war the number was not greatly in excess of 400,000. The census of 1860 only showed 379,994.
It is possible that the census made by direction of the state legislature was accu- rate, but the figures obtained by the general government in 1860 above given, cast a doubt upon the veracity of the enumerators. It is true that the year 1853 made no large additions to the total of 1852. If any such rate of increase as that witnessed between 1900 and 1910 had been maintained in the Fifties, the population of the state should have been greater in 1860 than the federal census marshals assigned to it, but the probabilities favor the belief that the tide of immigration receded greatly during the later Fifties, and that California suffered a considerable diminution of inhabitants throughout the decade owing to the propensity of those who had struck it rich to return "home."
Home to the pioneers, for several years after 1849, meant to most of them the states on the other side of the Rocky Mountains. An approximation of the number of Americans in the 326,000 estimated population of 1853 was 204,000, or nearly two-thirds of the inhabitants of California. Very few, comparatively speaking, of the Americans, prior to that year, thought of California as a place of permanent abode. Their families in many cases, and their relations and other ties were in the region they had abandoned, and they yearned to return to them. It was many years after the discovery of gold before the generality of Californians thought of the state as home, and the habit of applying that appellation to the East and other sections of the Union did not wholly cease until a new generation came on the scene.
In the estimate or approximation referred to the number of people of non-Ameri- ican origin in the state in 1853 was about 100,000, of which 30,000 were Germans, 28,000, French, 20,000 Latin Americans, and 17,000 Chinese. In addition there were 20,000 Indians and 2,000 negroes, the most of the latter from south and south- western states. At the close of the year, probably owing to the practice ever since maintained of large numbers of persons who while working in the interior in summer resorting to the City in winter, San Francisco had at least 50,000 people.
There was not an undue proportion of foreigners in the City at this time, consider- ing the sources from which the population was derived, the whole world having con- tributed to the result. Of English speaking peoples there were nearly 32,000. The Germans numbered 5,500; the French with 5,000 had a relatively greater representa- tion than later ; the Spanish Americans numbered 3,000 and there were 3,000 Chinese.
Population Predictions Not Realized
Immigration During the Fifties
California Not Regarded as Home
Numerous Foreigners
Foreigners in San Francisco
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The remaining 1,500 was composed of representatives of every nationality on the globe, a large proportion of this special contingent being made up of deserters from the ships in the harbor, which in many instances, when bereft of their crews, were abandoned, and subsequently made to do duty as warehouses, hotels and in one case as a prison.
This not inconsiderable population in the first years after the occupation was almost wholly dependent upon the output of the placers, in which perhaps a hundred thousand men were seeking for the precious metal during the summer of 1853. The other resources of the state were as yet scarcely touched by the eager gold hunters, the most of whom were unfitted by previous training or knowledge of agricultural possibilities to recognize that there were other greater and more enduring sources of wealth at their doors. Even those few specialties which the indolent natives had made their own were neglected, and for a period no one thought of any other means of gaining worldly substance than through the direct agency of the nuggets and dust extracted from the soil.
It requires little imagination to realize that the conditions produced by this com- plete absorption in the quest for gold must have been abnormal, and the results flow- ing from it had to be wholly different from those witnessed in communities where the process of upbuilding was more orderly and where the diversification of industry introduces complexities which by their attrition speedily wear off the rough edges of extreme individuality and put on the veneer of conventional civilization. It will be interesting to trace the effects of this practical confinement to a single field of en- deavor with the view of ascertaining the part it played in bringing about the serious troubles San Francisco had to deal with in the beginning of her career, but which were happily overcome by vigor of action, which often had to be called into play to repair the damage done by carelessness and neglect.
Mining the Chief Resource
Abnormai Conditions
CHAPTER XIX
MANY VICISSITUDES EXPERIENCED BY THE PIONEERS
A FLIMSILY CONSTRUCTED CITY-SAN FRANCISCO IN 1848-THE BIG FIRES OF EARLY DAYS -LACK OF PRECAUTIONS AGAINST FIRE-FIVE CONFLAGRATIONS-METHODS OF CON- STRUCTION IMPROVING-FIRST STORE BUILDING IN SAN FRANCISCO-GOOD ARCHI- TECTS-EXPENSIVE BUILDING MATERIALS AND HIGH COST OF LABOR-MISSION STYLE NOT FAVORED BY THE PIONEERS-JERRY BUILDING-NUMEROUS BRICK STRUCTURES -APPEARANCE OF THE CITY IN 1854-EARLY LAND GRABBING-LAYING UP TROUBLE FOR THE FUTURE.
CIT
STRANGER visiting a city of normal growth, if he is not CO statistically wise concerning its standing, soon forms an A impression of its wealth and resources by observing how Y + its people are housed, the character of its public and quasi public buildings, its warehouses and stores and its streets O SAN SEAL OF SCO and parks. These are the outward signs which tell the informed the story of its status as unerringly as the fig- ures of the assessor and the tax gatherer. But the keenest observer landing in San Francisco any time within five or six years of the gold discovery at Sutter's fort would have been at loss to form a judgment of possibilities or probabilities, for the visible manifestations were entirely dissimilar from anything he could have wit- nessed in the older communities. FR
It is only from something like a detailed description that an idea can be gained of the impression that the nondescript collection of devices made to do sheltering duty must have made on the stranger as late as 1854, and to understand the cause of the great vicissitudes to which the population was repeatedly subjected by fire, it will be necessary to trace the course of building operations during several years. In the architecture of the growing City, if the term architecture may be applied to that in which so little art was exhibited, we can discern the attitude of the inhabit- ants toward the land in which most of them imagined that they were merely tem- porary dwellers; and in it we may find an explanation of the restlessness which more than anything else, contributed to the instability that was so marked a char- acteristic of early days, and which was responsible for an indifference that tolerated lawlessness until it became unendurable, and defied the danger of conflagration which was recognized and feared but which men were too busy to guard against.
For several years after 1848 San Francisco was not a city of homes; it was merely a place where men lived, and some few women. The great preponderance of males produced this result, and its effects were visible in the temporary and makeshift construction or rather, it should be said, expedients resorted to for the
A Flimsily Constructed City
Appearance of the City in 1854
Not a City of Homes
139
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purpose of housing a population almost nomadic and always ready to move on. It was not until the home instinct began to assert itself that an improvement was visible. Until that was developed the metropolis of the Pacific coast presented the appearance of a great circus in winter quarters, ready to resume its wanderings on short notice.
At the end of April, 1848, when the gold rush began, the town contained about 200 buildings; 135 of these were used as dwellings and 12 were devoted to the sale and storage of goods. The statistician furnishing these figures also enumerates 35 shanties, which implies that those set down as dwellings were of better con- struction, but the testimony does not encourage the view that they were at all pre- tentious, the most of them being frame and rudely put together. The first brick house erected in San Francisco was put up by a firm named Mellus & Howard, on the corner of Montgomery and Clay streets. It was the second brick structure in California, one having previously been built of that material in Monterey.
No Public Buildings
In an address delivered by John W. Geary, the alcalde, in August, 1849, he mentioned that there was not a single public building in the town, not even a jail. The failure to provide a place of detention was remedied before the close of the year, not, however, by building but by utilizing the brig "Euphemia," which was bought by the council and converted into a prison. The "Euphemia" was moored in the cove of Yerba Buena, and doubtless the fact that she was surrounded by water added to the belief that prisoners were kept in greater security on that account, but her isolation was only temporary. In a very short time after the establishment of the floating prison it began to be surrounded by houses, and soon it had for a neighbor the ship "Apollo," which was converted into a saloon.
Big Fires of Pioneer Dayg
There were five great fires in the first four years after occupation, to which the term conflagration may be applied. The first of these occurred in December, 1849. It broke out in a place called Dennison's Exchange on the east side of the plaza, now known as Portsmouth square, and consumed nearly all the buildings on that side and destroyed a line of structures on the south side of Washington street, be- tween Montgomery and Kearny. Its progress was finally arrested by blowing up a building with gunpowder. The loss was estimated at a million dollars.
The First Cooflagration
This was the first pronounced warning of danger, the only two previously re- corded fires being the destruction of a hotel in the preceding January and the burning of the ship "Philadelphia." But there are no indications that the warning made any serious impression, for tents and shanties were made to take the place of the destroyed buildings, and the invitation to disaster they held out was accepted very promptly. On the 4th of May, 1850, a fire started in a building on the east side of the plaza, known as the U. S. Exchange, and three blocks were consumed before it was arrested. The district burned over was that between Jackson and Washington and Montgomery and Dupont streets, and the block between Montgom- ery and Kearny. There were suspicions of incendiarism, and arrests were made, but the accused were released, there being no evidence against them. The proba- bility favors the belief that the charges were wholly unfounded.
Although the loss occasioned by this fire was nearly four million dollars, there appears to have been no serious effort to prevent a recurrence of the disaster. The new buildings that took the place of those destroyed were flimsier than those that had been swept away. A few unavailing precautions were adopted by the council, which ordered the digging of artesian wells and the immediate construction of cis-
Inadequate Precautions
San Fran- cisco in 1848 .
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terns. An ordinance was also passed compelling every available person to assist in extinguishing a fire when called upon, a penalty ranging from $5 to $100 being imposed in case of refusal, and all householders were required to keep water buck- ets filled with water in readiness for an emergency.
The inefficiency of these simple measures was soon exhibited. Forty days after the second fire what the early annalists designated as the third great fire occurred, and it is chargeable with the destruction of five millions' worth of property, the space between Clay, Kearny and California, down to the water's edge, being swept by the devastating flames.
Once again the damage was repaired and numerous hook and ladder, engine and hose companies were formed, more wells were dug and the number of reservoirs was added to, but they proved unavailing to entirely ward off a danger which was becoming a menace to prosperity. On the 17th of September, about 4 o'clock in the morning, a fire started in the Philadelphia house on the north side of Jackson street near Washington, and the flames swept through the district bounded by Du- pont, Montgomery, Washington and Pacific streets. The structures destroyed were chiefly one story affairs, but the damage was estimated at between a quarter to half a million dollars. On this occasion, which the pioneers ranked as the fourth great fire, the newly organized fire companies did work which brought forth a great deal of commendation, but the critics were loud in their denunciation of the short- age of water in the cisterns, which prevented their getting the best possible service out of their new apparatus.
The fifth and last great fire of pioneer days occurred on the anniversary of the second fire. On the night of May 3d, 1851, flames were seen issuing from a paint or upholstery store on the south side of the Plaza. The planking in the street facilitated their spread and the fire extended from block to block. In ten hours 1,500 to 2,000 houses were destroyed, eighteen blocks being burned over. The brick buildings on Montgomery street and ten or twelve in other localities escaped, but all the remaining structures in an area three quarters of a mile north to south and a third of a mile east to west were wiped out. In this conflagration a number of old ships that had been abandoned in 1848 or 1849 were burned, among them the "Niantic" at Clay and Sansome streets, the "Apollo," which had been converted into a saloon and the "General Harrison." By breaking up the wharves the spread of the fire was arrested and the shipping was thus saved. The loss occasioned by this calamity was estimated at from ten to twelve million dol- lars, but the depression it created was short lived, nothing apparently being capable of downing the indomitable spirit of the inhabitants or extinguishing their confi- dence in the future of the City.
These repeated disasters, and the growing desire for something better, at length produced a change in construction. Many new buildings in the business quarter, erected after the fourth fire, were built of more enduring materials. Solidity was aimed at by the owners of property, and we are told that many of the structures erected at this time were "remarkable for their size and beauty." Tents and shan- ties had disappeared from the center of the town, but a few of the latter still sur- vived on its outskirts at the close of the year 1850. The price of building material, which had been abnormally high during the preceding year, was now much lower, some things costing scarcely one sixth to one fourth as much as formerly. The reduction gave a big impulse to building during 1851 and 1852, which resulted in
The Third Great Fire
Fire Compan- les Formed
The Fifth Great Fire
Improved Methods of Construction
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materially improving the appearance of the City. At the close of the latter year California, Sansome and Battery streets contained many brick houses, and granite was beginning to be employed in the lower stories.
It was during this year that the granite building at the northwest corner of Montgomery and California streets was erected. It enjoys the double distinction of being the first stone building put up in San Francisco and of passing through the great conflagration of 1906. The granite was cut and dressed in China and put in place by Chinese workmen. It was regarded as a handsome edifice in its time, and was still standing when this paragraph was penned, but is not likely to be preserved as a memorial, although its retention might admirably serve the pur- pose of illustrating for future generations the architectural standards of the period in which it was erected. The vicissitudes through which it has passed give assur- ance that it would prove an enduring monument.
The erection of the Parrot granite building was speedily followed by the con- struction of a number of others of the same material, all of which were regarded as fireproof. Many of these survived down to the day of the great disaster, and they all had the same external appearance imparted to them by their shutters of wrought iron and doors of that metal. There was nothing distinctive about their architec- ture, but the precautions taken to guard against fire gave the business part of the town a fortress-like appearance totally unlike that of any other American city, and confirmed the impression of the beholder that at length effective steps had been taken against the "fire fiend."
Great Build- ing Activity
The succeeding year was one of great building activity and there was evidence on every hand of attempts to escape from the severely plain models of 1852. The improvement must have been marked, for we find an enthusiastic critic declaring that "in a few years more, if she be not changed into marble like Augustan Rome, she may be turned into as beautiful and enduring a substance-into Chinese or rather California granite." In 1853 there was completed the largest edifice up to that time erected in California. It had a frontage of 122 feet on the west side of Montgomery from Washington to Merchant and extending 138 feet along the lat- ter street.
Good Architecture
This burst of enthusiasm and the statement that "the distant reader can hardly form a conception of the magnificence of some of these new buildings," so different from those constructed in the cities of the Atlantic states in the early stages of their career, was not wholly unwarranted. Competent critics of a later period, who had an opportunity to study the productions of 1853, 4 and 5 unite in the as- sertion that some of the constructions in the business district were both exotic and interesting and "retained under American surroundings a certain propriety and positive charm."
Early Architect4
This artistic turn was due to the presence in California in the early days of a number of foreign trained architects, whose quest for the golden fleece was not rewarded by an abundance of nuggets taken from the soil and who sought to repair their fortunes by applying their talents. Among those whose names have been preserved as worthy of mention were Thomas Boyd, Henry Kenitzer, Victor Hoff- man, Peter Portois, Stephen H. Williams, Prosper Huerne, Reuben Clarke and Gordon Cummings. These men were graduates of the best French and English schools, and their work, some of which survived the fire of 1906, testifies to the
First Store Building
Substantial Structures Erected
PANORAMIC VIEW OF SAN FRANCISCO IN 1851 From an autotype
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justness of the appreciative remarks of the annalist of 1856, and the later summing up of their accomplishments.
That the disposition to encourage art should have existed under the unfavorable circumstances which attended the growth of the City in the early Fifties is astonish- ing. Costly materials are not employed as a rule in the construction of buildings in small towns. Their use is reserved for later periods when those making the expenditures see the possibility of direct returns for their enterprise from the com- petition which always results from the concentration of a great number of people in the contracted precincts of a city. But the unique conditions in San Francisco prompted men to discount the future, and the result merited the tribute paid, that on the whole the business structures erected between 1850 and 1860 were better designed and better looking than those used for like purposes anywhere else in the United States at that time.
Most of the new houses erected in the first half of the decade fifty were of brick, but even this material was as costly as it was unsatisfactory. The owner of a building constructed in 1850 paid $140 a thousand for bricks, and they were of a very poor quality, being burnt at the San Quentin prison kiln, where care was not always taken to use fresh water in mixing the clay. The wages of bricklayers and hod carriers were fabulously high. When the brick fort at the Golden Gate was erected the contractor paid bricklayers $25 a day and the hod carriers $17.50. Carpenters and masons not infrequently were paid $20 a day.
The Parrott block, which has been referred to as still standing, cost its owner $117,000 to erect. It was constructed by Chinese labor, but the expenditure it involved does not suggest cheapness. The owner of the second brick house erected in San Francisco paid $140 a thousand for his brick and $20 a day to masons. Henry M. Naglee had been burned out four times before lie formed the resolution to provide for himself a fireproof structure. The building did not meet the mod- ern architects' definition of indestructibleity, but it passed through the fires of 1851 unscathed, and survived down to the day of the great conflagration as the oldest brick structure in San Francisco. It was situated on the corner of Montgomery and Merchant streets and underwent many external disfigurements before its final obliteration, but architects recognized under these disguises that "it must have been a very respectable piece of mid century Parisian design."
The largest of the early buildings, the Montgomery block, was planned by Gordon Cummings, and betrayed the inspiration of London construction of the Forties. , At the time of its erection in 1853 it was an object of great attention, the declared purpose of its projectors being to secure an absolutely fireproof structure. The precautions taken were not wholly responsible for the fact, but the Montgomery block escaped the flames of 1906, and the building still stands as a monument of the abiding faith of the pioneers in the future of the City of San Francisco.
It should be added in speaking of the architecture of the early Fifties that the high cost of labor, as too often happens, was not coupled up with incompetency. The stone carving and wrought iron work on some of the best buildings show con- clusively that the architects were able to obtain the assistance of well trained mechanics, who were not over numerous in the United States at that time; and the flattering tribute paid to the workers of this period, that they built well and better
Pretentious Bosiness Structures
Costly Build- ing Materials
Cost of Labor
Montgomery Block
Good Artisans
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during the Fifties than they have until the rehabilitation of the City after the great fire, was fully deserved.
There is no trace in the architectural movement of the early Fifties of appre- ciation of the work of the missionaries. Contemptuous allusions to mouldering piles of adobes are met with, but not the slightest hint of a disposition to imitate or adopt. That came later. It may have been unconscious prejudice formed by men of action against what they considered an institution that clogged progress, and prevented recognition of the possibilities in the arched corridors, the patio, the tiled roofs, domed towers and pierced belfries of establishing a style; but it is far more likely that the complete failure during the entire period to accept a sugges- tion from the buildings of the missions was due to the alien architects, who had brought with them the traditions of the schools in which they were educated, and who preferred to work along the lines to which they had been accustomed. The pioncer owners exercised little choice, preferring to trust to the guidance of their trained advisers.
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