USA > California > San Francisco County > San Francisco > San Francisco and thereabout > Part 3
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This was the time when the bonanza kings reaped their harvest. The most spectacular of the fortunes made thus were amassed by two San Franciscans, J. C. Flood and W. S. O'Brien. They began investing in a small way as early as 1862 in the Kentuck mine, but it was not until some years later, when associated with two practical miners of Virginia City, J. W. Mackey and J. G. Fair, that their operations became so large as to attract public attention. At the time they se- cured possession of the Consolidated Virginia, its shares had a mere nominal value, since it had yielded no returns and showed little prospect of so doing. Luck was with them in the venture, and when a fabulously rich vein was unearthed the stock rose so that the four men found themselves possessed of princely fortunes.
Happily for California the day is over when her prosperity is dependent upon lucky mining strikes. The mineral output of the State for 1900 was over thirty-two million dollars, no inconsiderable sum even in comparison with the great yields of the past, but
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THE RAILROAD AND BONANZA KINGS
today the State relies upon such a diversity of products that the vicissitudes of mining cannot shake her. In 1900 the value of the cured fruit crop was eleven million dollars, only four million less than the gold output for the same year, and this is but an index of the productiveness in other horticultural and pas- toral lines. Wheat, wool, oil, borax, beet-sugar, lumber and building-stone, are among the many products which contribute to the wealth of California.
With this brief glance at the stirring incidents of the San Francisco of the past, it will be in order now to inspect the city and its environs as they appear today. A community of four hundred thousand peo- ple, with boundless commercial opportunities, with a country of rare productiveness all about it, San Francisco looks to the future for her history as well as to the past.
THE PEERLESS BAY
A FREE sweep of water navigable for the largest ocean vessels over a stretch of well-nigh sixty miles; a land- locked harbor with but a single pass- age a mile in width leading to its sequestered waters; a haven cut off by hills and mountains from the ocean, yet so accessible that the largest steamers can enter on all tides-such is San Francisco Bay with its four hun- dred and fifty square miles of water! A quarter of the population of California dwells on its shores. With a width varying from seven to twelve miles, it lies just within the Coast Mountain spurs that em- brace it, and in that most temperate of latitudes, the thirty-eighth parallel. Its upper reaches are subdi- vided into two inner bays-San Pablo and Suisun. The former, with a diameter of some ten miles, is the northern end of the great waterway, while the latter, connected by the narrow Carquinez Straits, lies to the eastward and appears like a huge reservoir into which the Sacramento and San Joaquin Rivers pour their flood.
Such is the harbor which Portala first looked upon from the heights in 1769, and into which the little Spanish ship San Carlos sailed in 1775. Great are the changes which have taken place since then, but we of today are only on the threshold of the civil- ization destined to flourish here. This peerless bay, accessible, deep, safe, convenient, large enough for all the navies and merchant fleets of the world without crowding, in a climate free from winter snow and summer heat, surrounded by one of the most pro-
SAN FRANCISCO FROM THE BAY.
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THE PEERLESS BAY
ductive countries known, where nature is lavish alike of her fruits and precious metals,-who dare set a limit upon its growth? The eyes of the world are upon the Pacific now, and upon the United States. San Francisco Bay is the great point of departure for America into the Pacific, and as such is destined to be one of the great world harbors of the years to come.
What wonder that many explorers sailed along the California coast and failed to perceive the nar- row break in the rocks through which the Sacra- mento River rolls to the sea? Fifteen miles away, more or less, the Berkeley Hills rise from the farther shore of the bay, forming a background, which, viewed from the ocean on a misty day, appears to effectually close up the mile-wide gap which alone affords an entrance to the broad expanse of secluded water. Barren dreary rocks flank the shores, fog-hung and storm-worn, inhabited by cormorants and murres. To the south, guarding the entrance, is Point Lobos, with the Seal Rocks off shore where herds of sea lions bask in the sun or fish in the adjacent water. To the north is Point Bonita, where a lighthouse and fog horn warn mariners to avoid the rocks. Through the narrows the tide runs like a millrace. An old- fashioned brick fort stands close by the water at the inner point of the strait on the city shore. It is now abandoned, but upon bluffs to right and left are ter- raced embankments behind which lurk batteries of immense disappearing guns, while just inside the Gate in the midst of the bay is a rocky islet which has been converted into a citadel commanding the entire channel. This is the picturesque Alcatraz Island, a point of peculiar strategic importance in the fortifi- cation of the bay.
On either side of the Golden Gate a peninsula juts from the mainland, with the sea to westward and the bay to eastward. The northern peninsula is occupied by Mount Tamalpais and the Bolinas Ridge, with villages and charming residence suburbs nestling
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SAN FRANCISCO AND THEREABOUT
at its base (Belvedere, Sausalito, Mill Valley and San Rafael) while upon the hills of the southern tongue of land is the city of San Francisco. Straight away eastward on the far shore of the bay, stretching along the plain and foothills of the low spurs of the Coast Mountains, is a group of towns and cities which are practically fused into one, although still retaining their separate names and municipal governments. The principal of these are Alameda, Oakland and Berkeley, with an aggregate population of about one hundred thousand.
San Francisco Bay is an ever-changing pageant of gray and blue, with purple hills on its margin vary- ing with the season from green to brown. The same point of view seldom appears twice alike. Seasons, weather, hour, all stamp their imprint upon it and make it live. It is the more companionable because of its many surprises. You think you have followed it through the whole gamut of its changes, grave and gay, veiled and transparent, calm and tempestuous, when behold the next hour has transfigured the scene and presents an aspect before undreamed !
Who shall undertake to describe this palpitating wonder of water and cloud, margined with billowy ranges? At best it must be but a few fleeting impress- ions that the pen transfixes. In summer-time when many rainless months succeed, the hills are sear and brown. The monsoon sweeps in through the Golden Gate and spends its refreshing salt breath upon the Berkeley Range, flecking the dull greenish-blue tide with white. Off to the south the water seems to reach away to a misty dreamland. Somewhere down there is the prosperous city of San Jose, but of this the eye gives no hint. Northwards there is a long rolling boundary line of pale purple hills. Red Rock, an island in the bay, stands up as a striking bit of con- trasting color. We can distinguish the dark bands of eucalyptus groves high up on the tawny slopes of the Berkeley Hills, and the settlement below dotting
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THE PEERLESS BAY
the foothills for some miles. To the northwest is Tamalpais, rising gracefully to its 2,600 feet, a pale blue mountain mass with keenly chiseled profile, slant- ing down to the north in a fine sweep, with the hills of Angel Island in the foreground. In a secluded nook at the northern end of the bay, opposite the little town of Vallejo, lies the Mare Island Navy Yard, with its drydock, repair shops, and equipment for the naval base of the Pacific squadron.
From Black Point, the military reservation just within the Golden Gate, the profile of San Francisco is built up in big terrace lines to the quaint old frame battlemented structure on the bold rocky summit of Telegraph Hill. Thence in long sinuous sags, inter- rupted by the square angles of houses atop the ridge, it runs; streets may be seen plowing through the banks of buildings up the steep slopes. The turrets of the Mark Hopkins Institute of Art stand out conspicu- ously on the summit of California Street Hill, from which point the ridge falls off abruptly to the low- land of the valley followed by Market Street. The city's main thoroughfare may be traced from afar by three landmarks-the slender gray stone clock tower of the Ferry Building, the high domed Spreckels Building and the dome of the City Hall, surmounted by a colossal figure of Liberty. This dome is the third highest in the world, rising to a height of three hundred and thirty feet, and is a graceful point in the city's heart whether viewed from sea or shore.
Beyond the valley which sunders the hills of San Francisco, rise the Twin Peaks to a height of over nine hundred feet. On extends the range south into San Mateo County where the mountains stretch away in blue misty reaches.
The waterfront is lined with docks crowded with ships and steamers, the slender masts and maze of rig- ging foresting the shore with ropes and spars. Other ships and white transports from the Philippines lie at anchor here and there off shore, with an occasional
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SAN FRANCISCO AND THEREABOUT
battle-ship or cruiser to lend impressiveness to the scene. Comfortable fat white ferry boats with black smokestacks slip in and out on their journeys to and from the opposite shores. In midstream is Yerba Buena Island, now popularly known by its nickname of Goat Island-a rounded land mass, treeless and brown on its exposed side but with groves of live-oak hidden away on its northern slopes. A naval training station is located there, fitting boys for sea duty on our men-of-war.
To the eastern eye accustomed to verdure in summer-time, the dry hills of San Francisco Bay look strange enough, but the old resident loves this aspect of nature and would not change it had he the power. There is something quieting and restful about the sober tones which vary from brown and yellow through a whole range of purples, grays and blues, with plumbeous curtains of fog rolling in from the sea. The wide vistas, the dignity and gravity of the scene, the bigness and freedom of all, sink deep into the heart. There is nothing trivial or commonplace, nothing merely pretty about it. Its largeness and nobility grow upon the beholder with years of resi- dence.
At times all this varied sweep of view is revealed in the utmost detail, with sun sparkling on the rippling waves, and an hour later the high summer fog will drift over, softening the outlines, veiling the hills, dimming the distant heights, and giving the fancy free scope to build into the obscurity what it pleases. A fresh sea breeze generally blows across the bay throughout the summer, but there are days when the water seems fairly oily in its serenity.
The night views of the bay have their own charm. As the ferry boat leaves the waterfront, a multitude of bright lights sparkle at the many piers, some of them red and green, throwing splashes of soft waver- ing color in the water. The city streets up the steep hills are indicated by twinkling stars, and across the
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THE PEERLESS BAY
water sparkle the lights of Berkeley on the upper slopes. The dark dim land masses, the blackness of the bay with a foggy sky above leave a solemn and mysterious effect of vastness and loneliness on the mind.
I have dwelt on the beauty of the bay in sum- mer because it is so distinctively Californian; but the winter, too, has its own loveliness. The few showers of early autumn are often followed by some of the warmest days of the year, in October and even in early November. This is the season when we look for northers, those singular wind storms which some people dislike, but which I for one welcome among the experiences of the year. The north wind blows with hot dry gusts of the desert. If the rains have started any green blades forth, they droop and wilt beneath its withering fury. Every particle of mois- ture in the air is dried out and the atmosphere is crystal clear. At night the stars blaze and flash as if opening wide their wild eyes at the tumult of the wind. Each successive day for three days the weather grows hotter and drier and the force of the wind in- creases. Then the gale dies away as suddenly as it arose, to be followed not infrequently by a welcome shower. There is something immensely stimulating, exhilarating, even exciting about this storm beneath an azure sky. It is our substitute for thunderstorms which are almost unknown.
When the winter rains finally set in, what a change comes over the landscape! Every shower starts forth the green blades on hill and plain. The southeast wind blows a gale, the dark clouds hurry over the leaden bay, the torrents fall, and everybody is happy. At the end of the storm, when the sun thrusts its searching rays through the cloud loops, striking the distant hillsides, a pale glint of green brightens them. Soon, how wonderfully soon, they are clothed in verdure from valley to crest! The green fairly glows and shimmers beneath the winter
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SAN FRANCISCO AND THEREABOUT
sun. And the atmosphere, washed of all impurities by the downpour, is of matchless transparency. Every ravine and dimple on the blue slopes of Tamalpais is revealed in all its lovely nakedness. Far away on the summit of the San Mateo Range the redwood trees may be seen standing up against the sky. From the Berkeley Hills, out through the Golden Gate the larg- est of the Farallone Islands is plainly visible. forty miles away and its intermittent light flashes during the hours of darkness. The houses of San Francisco and the ships in the harbor are defined in startling clearness.
The winter months about the bay are really a curious union of autumn with spring. Winter is overlooked in the rushing together of the dying and newborn year. Flowers are blooming, birds are sing- ing and a thrill of life passes over land and sea.
At this season the bay is crowded with hosts of birds. Ducks and scoters swim about off shore. Murres and cormorants, grebes and loons dive and sport to their hearts' content. It is the gulls, however, that attract the greatest attention of passengers on the ferry boats. They follow the boats back and forth, picking up food thrown overboard from the cook's galley and darting after bread tossed them from the deck by interested spectators. Feeding the gulls has become a favorite amusement, and a pretty sight it is to see them poise in readiness and swoop upon the morsel of bread, catching it in mid air. So tame do they become that I have known them to take bread from the outstretched hand of a man.
With this winter view of the bay, let us leave it to inspect more closely the great mart upon its shore. Hills of green and blue lie afar off. Mount Diablo, one of the commanding peaks of the Coast Moun- tains, lifts its head back of the Berkeley Range. A brown streak on the blue water of the bay marks the course of the Sacramento River, flooded by the winter rains. The islands are beautifully green; ships have
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THE PEERLESS BAY
spread their clouds of canvas to dry after the storm; back and forth the eye ranges over miles of varied scenery, all colored with a palette that only a Cali- fornia winter furnishes. The great ferry boat glides into its slip and we follow the crowd off the upper deck into the magnificent nave of the Ferry Building and down the broad stone stairway to the city street.
VIGNETTES OF CITY STREETS
O H the bewilderment of a first view of a big hustling American city! To be dropped off the ferry into the very center of the maelstrom of life, where every mortal is bent upon his own task, where streams and counter- streams of humanity hurry in and out and round about, and all seem at first glance like the chaos of life. After the repose of the country, the wide serenity of the hill-encircled bay, to grapple with the noise and stir of the city! But what a sensation of exhilaration, this elbowing with the eager crowd, this trotting with the pack after the quarry, this pressing on with the tumult of men in the rush for place! Here life and effort are focused, and the great organic forces of the State are centralized and defined. The wheels of the Juggernaut Progress roll along the street and their victims are many, but the victories of peace atone for all the strife, and humanity goes its way, cursing and praying, weeping and singing, fight- ing and loving, but on the whole advancing from the beast to the angel.
At the foot of Market Street the long low Ferry Building of gray Colusa stone commands the view, and its graceful clock-tower rises above the commo- tion of the city highways. To right and left stretches the waterfront street, where big docks and wharfs are lined with shipping. Heavy freight vans rattle and bang over the cobble-stones. Bells are clanging on cable cars, newsboys are piping the sensation of the hour; there is an undertone of many voices, a scuffling of hundreds of feet on the cement walks, a hurrying
CASCADE
LOOKING DOWN MARKET STREET.
FROM A PHOTOGRAPH BY WATERS
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VIGNETTES OF CITY STREETS
of the crowd for first place on the cars. From this point of vantage one might parody the well-known lines of Tennyson into:
Cars to right of you,
Cars to left of you,
Cars in front of you clatter and rumble.
The Market Street cable cars bear the most be- wilderingly diverse inscriptions. No two seem alike, yet all roll merrily up the same broad highway. The novice soon discovers that for all practical purposes one is as good as another unless his journey be into the higher residence portions of the city, and he furthermore learns that by a most extensive system of transfers he can keep traveling almost ad lib for one five-cent fare, journeying thus from the bay to the ocean. There is a great parade of cars in front of the Ferry Building. The red and green cable cars of the Washington and Jackson districts come sweep- ing around a loop out of a side street with clanging bells and a watchman preceding them. Beyond their stand are electric and horse cars, all off to the right of Market, while to the left several important south-of- Market electric systems start. Here are the fine big cars that run down the peninsula to San Mateo, as well as the Mission and Harrison Street lines.
About the only distinctive feature in the laying out of San Francisco's streets which relieves the pre- vailing prosaic checkerboard system of American cities, is found in the direction of Market Street which slants boldly across the center of the town. The streets to the north of it were stupidly laid out on the points of the compass, up hill and down dale, but a direct route from the mission to the bay following down the valley, was a matter of so much import- ance in the early days that this highway was perpet- uated in the permanent scheme for the city. The streets of the section south of Market are parallel or at right angles to that thoroughfare, while the district to the north is laid out in streets which run on other
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SAN FRANCISCO AND THEREABOUT
lines, making gore blocks at every intersection with Market.
Nearly everyone seems bound up Market Street, either a-foot or a-cable, so why not follow the crowd? Cars of many colors are swinging around on the turn-table one after another, and the man in the house of glass, who I trust never throws stones, is giving them the cue for starting up town. A big under- ground gong is clanging its warning as the cars swoop upon the turn-table; bells are jangled at the imper- turbable crowd, and in some mysterious way people manage to escape being run over.
Jumping on the first car to start, I find an outside seat on the dummy. The bell rings, the gripman throws back his lever which clutches the cable. You can hear the grip work amid the rumble of the start. He hammers away at his foot gong and off we roll! There is a rush of wind down the street, a whirl and confusion of traffic. Wholesale houses and office buildings line the way, mostly landmarks of the old regime with much gingerbread ornamentation, but here and there a fine modern building of stone or terra cotta shows that the city is alive and growing. There is time for but a glance up the streets that shoot off from Market at an acute angle; California, Pine, Bush, are passed in a trice and the corner is reached where Post and Montgomery impinge upon Market. The fine Crocker Building is squeezed in on the gore block between Post and Market while across the way on the south side of Market a whole block is taken up with the Palace Hotel-a monument of bay windows. A sort of Bridge of Sighs crosses New Montgomery connecting the Palace with the Grand Hotel. On the northeast corner of Market and Montgomery Streets, a modern terra-cotta office building is occupied by the business departments of the Southern Pacific Company. Up Montgomery Street, past the Lick House and the Occidental Hotel, both in the architecture of two or three decades ago, is the magnificent Mills
LOOKING UP MONTGOMERY STREET FROM MARKET.
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VIGNETTES OF CITY STREETS
Building, one of the most substantial and well pro- portioned structures of the city. Another massive edifice of fine design is the Hayward Building, a block beyond the Mills Building, but the clanging car is rolling up the street and there is no time to itemize the many modern buildings which are daily climbing up on steel frames from the noisy city pave.
Another block of navigating the grip and the coign of observation, the navel of San Francisco is reached. It is the corner of Third, Kearny, and Geary Streets, where the busy life of the city centers. So many people leave the car at this point that 'tis evident there is something doing, and meekly enough I fall in line with the crowd. The three morning papers seek companionship upon the corners here- the Chronicle, whose building is of red sandstone and brick, with its clock tower-a well-known landmark of the city; the Examiner Building, in Spanish style, with simple plaster walls, deep recessed portico at the top, and tile roof; and the Call tower, rising fifteen stories to a fine dome, the most commanding archi- tectural feature of the business district. At this meeting of the ways is Lotta's drinking fountain, a token of which San Franciscans are fond from its association with the soubrette who, in early days, first made fame and fortune here by winning the hearts of the pioneers.
Kearny Street is the highway for shopping, and hosts of fair ladies trip its stony pavements, looking with absorbed attention at window displays of silks and laces, coats and curtains, or casting glances at the latest walking exponent of fads and fashions. Some are lured by the fragrant aroma or tempting window exhibition into the sanctuary of ices and candies; others succumb to the florist, and thus money circulates by the caprice of feminine fancy.
At the Kearny Street corner, right in the shadow of the Chronicle Building, is a bright and attractive feature of the city streets-the flower sellers. They
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SAN FRANCISCO AND THEREABOUT
are ranged in a long row on the curb, men and boys standing beside their baskets and holding out bouquets to tempt the wayfarers. The busy stream of humanity sweeps by with fluttering skirts and laughing voices. Electric cars clang up and down, a coachman snaps his whip as a glistening carriage with jingling har- ness rolls over the asphalt pavement and the horses hoofs clatter merrily. It is a democratic procession -the negro with his pipe, the traveler with dress-suit case, an officer just returned from the Philippines, and above all, the women, over whom even Rudyard Kip- ling, with cynic eye and caustic pen, could not but indulge in rhapsodies. Mid all the din and grit of the city, alike in winter as in summer, the flower sellers are at their post, and the perfume of the violet, the sweet-pea and the rose, or whatever may be the flower of the season, steals upon the senses, while the brilliant array of bloom makes an oasis in the desert of stone.
San Francisco is commonly divided into north and south of Market Street. In the early days of the city the aristocratic part of town was in Happy Val- ley and on Rincon Hill, to the south, but when a cit- izen, Mr. A. S. Hallidie, successfully solved the problem of climbing the steep hills north of Market by inventing the cable car, people flocked to the heights commanding a view of the bay and the Golden Gate. Then it was that California Street became the nob hill where palaces of ample dimensions were built by the Stanfords, Hopkins, Crockers, Floods and other mil- lionaires, while people of more moderate means set- tled upon the adjacent hills and slopes. The south of Market section became the home of the artisans for the most part, and certain cross streets, notably Third, Sixth and Eighth, have developed into secondary shopping centers. Mission Street, the first thorough- fare south of Market, is becoming the great wholesale street of the city, and numbers of splendid modern structures, solid, substantial, and simple in design, are being constructed upon it.
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