An Unvanished Story:
5,500 Years of History in the Vicinity of
Seventh & Mission Streets, San Francisco

References Cited | Recommended Reading | Additional Internet Sources

In these web pages, you will learn about:

Project

The Seventh & Mission historical study was carried out by the Southeast Archeological Center, U.S. National Park Service and the U.S. General Services Administration in support of a proposed expansion of the existing facilities of the U.S. Court of Appeals Building (formerly the Post Office and Federal Court House Building) at Seventh & Mission Streets, San Francisco, California. Today, the old Post Office and Court House building houses the courts and offices of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. The purpose of this interagency technical assistance project was to provide an archival and background literature search of cultural resources (i.e., archaeological, architectural, historic, ethnic, etc.) within the project area that could be affected by the proposed expansion.

The proposed expansion project encompassed a 50,625 square foot area within City Block 3703, bounded by the U.S.Court of Appeals (Old Post Office) building to the west, Stevenson Street to the north, the boundaries with Lots 80, 85, 86, and Jessie Street to the east, and Mission Street to the south (Assessor's Map of Block 3703). Dimensions for the expansion were approximately 350 ft north/south by 150 ft. east/west, representing approximately 1.16 acres. The project (study) area is situated within one of the earliest urbanized sections of San Francisco.

Why Was This Study Conducted?

These web pages are adapted from the results of a historical study (ACS 1994) carried out to meet the requirements of Section 110 and Section 106 of the National Historic Preservation Act of 1966 as amended prior to the expansion. Section 106 requires that federal agencies having direct or indirect jurisdiction over a proposed federal project, prior to approval of the expenditure of funds or the issuance of a license, take into account the effect of the undertaking on any district, site, building, structure, or object included in or eligible for inclusion in the National Register of Historic Places. Section 110 directs the heads of all federal agencies to assume responsibility for the preservation of National Register listed or eligible historic properties owned or controlled by their agency. Federal agencies are directed to locate, inventory and nominate properties to the National Register, to exercise caution to protect such properties and to use such properties to the maximum extent feasible. In the case of the proposed expansion at Seventh & Mission, an alternate location was ultimately chosen and no further archival or archaeological work was conducted at the Seventh & Mission site. Alternative actions for expansion notwithstanding, the Section 106 compliance background study (ACS 1994) produced interesting historical and archaeolgical information.

These web pages highlight the historical information obtained by the background study with additional major contributions derived from three publications: Vanished Waters: A History of San Francisco's Mission Bay (1986), by Nancy Olmsted; California Archaeology (1984), by Michael J. Moratto; and Tar Flat, Rincon Hill and the Shore of Mission bay: Archaeological Research Design and Treatment Plan for SF-480 Terminal Separation Rebuild (1993), by Mary Praetzellis and Adrian Praetzellis (eds.).

The Costanoans, the Ohlone, and Prehistory of San Francisco Bay

The city of San Francisco, ca. 1868. Library of CongressThe Formation of San Francisco Bay

San Francisco Bay occupies a late Pliocene Epoch (2-3 million years ago) trough (great inland valley) that was flooded repeatedly during Pleistocene interglacials. The most recent filling of San Francisco Bay occurred during the past 10,000 years. At about 15,000 years ago, the coastal shoreline was more than nine miles west of San Francisco's present ocean beaches. Thereafter, the rising seas, caused by the melting of continental glaciers, began to encroach upon California's coast. Before 10,000, the great Sacamento River surged through the rocky gorge of the Golden Gate (see location on 19th century map at right) and then flowed across what is today the submerged continental shelf, finally emptying into the ocean many miles west of the present shoreline (Moratto 1984: 219).

As glacial icecaps melted and sea levels began to rise over the next 10,000 years, ocean waters gradually drowned the inland valley until it reached a point 381 feet above the river's bedrock at the Golden Gate. A tidal lagoon at Mission Bay (see map above) was created late in this period of rising seas, reaching its present height about 5,000 years ago. After the last ice-melt raised the ocean level, Mission Bay extended over at least 560 acres of tidal mudflat and marsh. These low areas were filled in during the San Francisco's rapid development in the 19th century (Olmsted 1986: 2).

Teeming Environs

10,000 years ago, San Francisco Bay contained deep waters. A natural estuary was formed at the confluence of the Pacific Ocean, the Sacramento River and the San Joaquin River. Mud flats formed on the shores of the bay and in combination with the adjacent rocky points, sand dunes, small estuaries, and marshes provided a variety of natural habitats for marine and terrestrial life. As a result, diverse biotic communities developed in this lush environment:

Teeming with animal and vegetable life, these environs provided a breadth of accessible foods and materials for human use. Marine fauna included a variety of fish and sea mammals, mud-flat and rocky shore molluscan species, and marsh-dwelling water fowl. Terrestrial plant communities on the San Francisco peninsula included grasslands interspersed with low-growing shrubs, riparian habitats bordering small streams, and tules, grasses, and cattails surrounding a lagoon and small freshwater lake. These plant communities supported large and small game, such as deer, rabbit and birds [Alvarez 1993:13].

By the time of the Coast Survey Map of 1852 [45 K], the silt deposited by the tides had transformed the 300 acres above normal high-water into salt marsh, leaving 260 acres of shallow lagoon covered by a foot or more of water at low tide. The incoming tides carried sediments from the engulfed river and the ocean. Mud and sand built up along the edges of the lagoon, forming islands that sprouted cordgrass and, at the higher levels, pickleweed. Except for the occasional winter storm blowing in from the southeast, Mission Bay remained a lagoon and marshland of calm, protected sunny water. With such a setting it became an abundant resource for enormous bird populations, including very large duck communities and migrating birds such as Canadian geese, egrets, herons, osprey, seagulls, visiting loons, hawks, owls, and falcons. Multitudes of mice, shrews and rabbits thrived in the upper reaches of the salt marsh (Olmsted 1986: 2). The area was a setting for humans, with an abundance of land-based game (e.g., deer, elk, waterfowl), marine game (seals, sea lions, sea otters), fish (salmon, surf perch, white seabass, jacksmelt), and shellfish (red abolone, mussels, oysters, clams) (Moratto 1984: 221).

A Rich Environment for Humans

Earliest European view of the Costanaon (Ohlone) People. 1822 Lithograph from 1816 ink and paint drawing, Louis (Ludovik) Choris (Russian, b. Germany, 1795-1828). Unique among California Indians, the double-bladed paddle was special innovation of the coast people. Courtesy, Bancroft Library

Archival research indicates that during prehistoric and early historic times a large marsh protruded inland south of Rincon Hill as far west as the Seventh & Mission study area as indicated on the 1852 Coast Survey map [45 K]. This area would have provided favorable habitats for biotic communities that would have been exploited by Native Americans and later historic populations. The greater San Francisco Bay area was rich in rocks and minerals, such as obsidian, chert, and hematite for pigment (Moratto 1984: 221). A combination of physiographic, geologic, hydrologic, floral and faunal factors resulted in a varied and rich environmental setting that provided a natural resource base conducive to prehistoric and historic human habitation.

Diversity and Abundance Among Native Cultures
[Adapted from Moratto (1984: 2-6)]

When the Spanish first established colonies in California in the late 1700's, Alta California was the home of more than 300,000 Indians—a greater number than in any comparable area north of Mexico. The historic period Native Californians were by no means "primitive," however. With some evidence that they practiced limited horticulture or agriculture, they relied mainly on hunting and gathering as the basis of their subsistence, developing complex social systems. So diverse were the Indian lifestyles that early 20th century ethnographers described no less than four major culture areas. The linguistic picture was even more elaborate, with approximately 90 languages, including several hundred dialects.

Lifeways

To sustain their populations, the California Indians pursued diverse economic strategies. Basic subsistence activities were gathering (acorns, roots, berries, etc.), hunting (deer, elk, sea mammals, and small game), fowling, collecting (mollusks, birds' eggs, insect foods), and both freshwater and marine fishing. Although only a half-dozen groups in southern California engaged in limited agriculture (growing maize, beans, gourds, and amaranth), many of California's transcendent hunter-gatherers achieved the status of "proto-agriculturalists": they sowed wild seeds; planted and/or tended native root crops, greens, and tobacco; pruned mesquite to stimulate growth; planted "vineyards" of wild grapes; irrigated desired plants; and used "quasi-agricultural" techniques to harvest acorns, grass seeds, yucca, mesquite, and pine nuts. They developed complex tools composed mainly of bone, chipped stone, and ground stone. Besides tools such as projectile (spear or arrow) points, sinkers, and bone saws, the Indians also made a great variety of non-utilitarian items such as ornamental charmstones and whistles.

The advanced subsistence methods of the California Indians are further exemplified by their invention of leaching for acorn and buckeye, grinding implements for hard seeds, canoes for acquiring marine mammals and fish, complex fishing and trapping gear, granaries for storing large supplies of food, hermetically sealed containers, artificial water-utilization methods such as digging wells and building reservoirs on the desert.

The Native Californians managed their fish and wildlife resources in various ways. Among many northwestern groups, specialists controlled fishing and dam-building activities, regulated the opening of the salmon-fishing season, and managed the use of the spawning runs to ensure a sustained, efficient harvest. The Indians also widely managed their environment through the controlled burning of vegetation. Fire was used extensively to increase the yield of edible seeds, encourage the growth of desirable plants, flush and drive game, provide forage for deer and elk, and clear the ground below oaks and pines to facilitate nut harvests. Systematic burning was the single most important environmental modification by the California Indians, allowing them to control plant successions and, locally, to maintain biotic communities such as grasslands and oak savannas. Grass seeds likely were more significant in prehistory than has been thought and may have rivaled the acorn as a staple in the aboriginal diet.

Trade Networks

To optimize the distribution of resources over large areas, California Indians developed sophisticated exchange systems. Trade in this area has considerable antiquity: a string of Olivella shell beads from the coast was found at Leonard Rockshelter, Pershing County, Nevada, in deposits nearly 8,600 years old. By late prehistoric times, Indians were transporting such items as acorns, salt, fish, shell artifacts, clothing, bows and arrows, baskets, and even dogs over a network of trails. The obsidian trade was central to this exchange system that allowed the unique or surplus resources of one group to be distributed to others. Trade feasts, such as those of the Pomo and Chumash, afforded a mechanism for neighboring groups to exchange surplus goods. Trade, coupled with the general use of money (e.g., clamshell disks), increased the potential size and stability of populations by diminishing the specter of starvation in the event of local, short-term failures of normal food resources.

In the economic sphere, the California Indians were by no means insulated. As early as AD 1800, and probably before, the Walla Walla were trekking from Washington to Santa Clara County to acquire cinnabar for use as a vermilion pigment; trade with the Great Basin was active for millennia; and lively commerce with the Southwest brought pottery, cotton blankets, stone axes, and other goods into California in exchange for shell and perhaps turquoise. There is also evidence that turquoise may have been mined in the Mojave Sink vicinity by Indians from the pueblos of northern Arizona.

Social Organization

California Indian societies often were stratified, with individuals classed as elite, commoners, poor, slaves, or drifters. Recognized also were bureaucrats (chief's aides and managers) and religious functionaries who merited a notch above commoners. Prestige came as well to such craft specialists as expert traders, basket weavers, and bead makers. In the more complex societies, craft guilds controlled certain industries, for example, canoe building among the Chumash. Social preeminence was reserved for chiefs. Usually supported by their communities, chiefs lived in relative luxury with large houses, fancy clothing, stores of food, and money. Chiefs often married several women in order to strengthen alliances with the elite of other groups.

The basic landholding group in much of the California heartland was the village community or tribelet—an independent social entity governed by a chief. As many as 500 such tribelets may have existed in pre-contact California. Tribelets sharing the same language, culture, and history comprised nonpolitical ethnic groups. Individual tribelets held territories ranging in area from about 80 square miles to as much as 10,000 square miles. Tribelet activities often focused upon a principal town that served as a political, ritual, and economic center to which nearby villages were tributary. Beyond the tribelet or tribal units, higher-order alliances for trade, war, and ritual were found in many parts of California. These often linked members of diverse ethnic communities who had access to different resources. At times, as many as several thousand Indians would convene in one place for rituals, trade fairs, or military ventures.

The Earliest San Franciscans: the Costanoans and Historic Ohlone
[Adapted from Olmsted (1986: 2-5)]

It is uncertain when the first humans appeared in the San Francisco area. The earliest known occupation sites have been radiocarbon dated to about 5000 to 5500 years ago. The first humans may have come with the technology and paraphernalia of the historically known Costanoans, skimming over the shallow waters of Mission Bay in their balsas, the buoyant watercraft made of tule reeds lashed together in bundles. With pointed sticks, they may have pried mussels from rocks and dug up clams, scooped up smelt with woven baskets, and snared ducks and shorebirds with throwing nets weighted by grooved stones. Independent of the tides, they could paddle inland up Mission Creek to cut willow withes for their baskets and for lashings to hold the pole framework of their huts. In the brackish backwater along the creek, they could have harvested the tule reeds that gave them new boats, fibers for their sleeping mats and aprons, and thatch for their conical houses. Beside freshwater springs they may have set up their encampments, living lightly on the land until the season changed or their food supply was exhausted and they had to move on within their tribal territory. 


Table: Archaeological Periods in Central California (from Fredrickson 1973:115)
___________________________________________________________________________________



Period				Approx. Date		Archaeological Site/Unit

Upper Emergent			AD 1,500		Phase 2, Late Horizon

Lower Emergent			AD 300			Phase 1, Late Horizon

Upper Archaic			2,000 BC		Middle Horizon
							Intermediate Cultures

Lower Archaic			6,000 BC		Early Horizon
							Early San Francisco Bay
							Early Millingstone Cultures

Paleo-Indian			10,000 BC		San Dieguito
							Western Clovis

Early Lithic?						Farmington?
							Santa Rosa Island?
___________________________________________________________________________________

Prehistoric mounds containing burials with artifacts and middens dating back to at least 2000 years ago were found on Hunters Point, some near the shore at Candlestick Park. The people of these mounds may have been the ancestors of the Costanoans, as the Spanish named the coast people. The Costanoan linguistic group, comprised of eight separate languages spoken by 50 autonomous tribes (each with its own dialect), has been traced to AD 500. At the time the Spanish arrived the coast people had fished the waters of Mission Bay for 1,275 years. They numbered 10,000, all in the same linguistic group, of which 1,400 are thought to have spoken Raniaytusk—the language spoken by the group most closely associated with Mission Bay.

"Costanoan" has been the useful descriptive category for the people who belonged to this large linguistic group and lived on San Francisco Peninsula as far south as Monterey on the ocean side. Indians living in the Bay Area today reject "Costanoan" because it is Spanish; they prefer "Ohlone," meaning "the abalone people," which is closer to their own conception of their ancestors' identity. Studies of basket fragments and materials found in middens, descriptions of the tribes' physical and social life set down by the Spanish Fathers and visiting explorers (mostly in the early 19th century), plus the threads of memory recorded in ethnographers' field notes of the early 20th century—these form the basis for all later accounts of the coast people.

Mission Bay Settlements

That the coast people had an encampment at Mission Bay seems certain. The small lake edged with willows, and Mission Creek leading directly to the sheltered feeding ground for thousands of birds, made the sunny bay the perfect setting for a people whose choice of food was mussels. Whether their settlement was large or small, temporary or permanent, we cannot say.

Tribelets ranged from 50 to 500 members; the average village had about 200 people. Larger groups were more likely to have a permanent central village with outlying, temporary camps placed near specific food sources. The absence of oaks at Mission Bay, in a culture where acorns were used every day as a staple food in the form of gruel or small cakes, suggests that Mission Bay was one of several temporary encampments visited periodically from a permanent village further inland.

One of the puzzles about California Indians is the fact that the languages of the tribes differed so greatly, even within the same linguistic group. Captain Juan Bautista de Anza, for example, brought an Indian from Monterey to San Francisco to serve as interpreter, but even though he was a Costanoan, he could not understand Indians in the Bay Area. Anza also discovered that his Indian guides were afraid to cross specific physical boundaries; a certain territory was allotted to each tribe, and boundaries were respected.

The religion of the tribes was a mixture of witchcraft and their belief in magic, myths and the importance of their dreams. All of this would have made them particularly vulnerable to the Spanish missionaries. Mission music and ritual chanting at high mass had great fascination for the neophytes. The importance their own ceremonies had for the Indians was matched by the great significance religion held for the Spanish Fathers.

The Coming of the Spanish, the Gold Rush, and Early Days of San Francisco

The Spanish Presence At Mission Bay, 1775-1833
[Adapted from Olmsted (1986: 6-9)]

The first European boat to explore the waters of Mission Bay was a cayuco, or dugout, made from the trunk of a redwood taken from the bank of the Carmel River and brought into San Francisco Bay on August 2, 1775, aboard the San Carlos. As the San Carlos lay anchored off Angel Island, pilot Juan Bautista Aquirre followed his instructions to explore the southeastern part of San Francisco Bay. No diary has survived, but all later accounts agree that as the Spanish pilot entered Mission Bay he saw three Indians on shore, and they were weeping. He named the protected bay Ensenada de los Llornnes—or Cove of the Weepers. Thus Mission Bay was discovered by the Spanish and given a name that seems prophetic for its native inhabitants.

The Spanish soldiers and Franciscan padres explored the land around San Francisco Bay from 1769 to 1776. They were charged with finding the best sites for a fort and two missions that would establish the church north of Monterey. Using an astrolabe and a compass borrowed from the Carmel Mission, Father Pedro Font drew the best map to survive these expeditions and keyed it to his diary descriptions, complete with pen sketches of the islands in the bay. On March 29, 1776, enroute from the site chosen for the future presidio to find the most suitable spot for a mission nearby, he wrote:

Passing through wooded hills and over flats with good lands we encountered two lagoons [Mission Bay] and some springs of good water with plentiful grass, fennel and other useful herbs, we arrived at a beautiful arroyo . . . It [Mission Creek] enters the plain by a fall which it makes on emerging from the hills, and with it all can be irrigated, and at the same fall a mill can be erected, for it is very suitable to that purpose.

The presidio was dedicated on September 17, 1776, and the Mission of San Francisco de Asis on October 9, 1776, both with all the fanfare, firepower and ceremony the Spanish could muster. In Farther Palou's diary he noted that the Indians were so frightened at the sound of the ceremonial cannon firing that they fled the scene.

The "Missionized" Indians

From their diaries and letters we know that the Spanish fathers viewed the California Indians as lost children, incapable of understanding beyond a simple level. Further, they saw them as lost souls, doomed to eternal suffering unless converted and baptized. The priests were appalled at the nearly naked Indians, smeared with mud to keep out the cold, living on acorn mush, in huts made of reeds. They saw themselves as inspired rescuers. Their plan was to clothe the Indians and teach them to weave cloth to improve their diet and teach them to raise beans, corn, and fruit; to build permanent houses and teach them to make adobe bricks. This plan would take about ten years, the padres calculated, then the Christian Indians would settle their families on small farms, effectively colonizing California. The saving of their souls would proceed at the same time.

Fear and fascination were the means for saving souls. The adobe walls of the mission were painted with the glories of heaven emblazoned above, and below, fiery scenes of explicit tortures reserved for the damned. The recruited neophytes were quick to learn the Lord's Prayer in Spanish and to follow the rituals of the mass. In return they were free to roam within the confines of the mission, where they attended services and found the music of bells, flutes and a small violin captivating. Missionary zeal can best be understood as the padres' conception of an inspired rescue effort: overcome all obstacles and save the Indians from the observed hardships of this world and the certain tortures of the next.

After the death of Father Serra in August 1784, followed by the departure of Father Palou for Mexico, life for the Indian converts at Mission Bay became more and more repressive. Diego de Borica, one of the most enlightened governors of California, began to look into complaints from Father J.M. Fernandez. After sleepless nights and much worry, he had written that in 1795, 203 Indians died and 200 escaped at San Francisco. The Indians were compelled to do excessive work, handcuffed, imprisoned and beaten for the most trivial offences. "When the miserable Indians, learning too late that their former gentile life, even with its precariousness, was far preferable to Christianization . . . they attempted to regain their freedom by flight. They were hunted down and punished with tenfold vigor."

The Indians left the San Francisco mission at every opportunity. It is from the accounts of a handful of visitors, perhaps ten in all, that we know how the Spanish tried and failed. It should be remembered that these observers of San Francisco's mission, much as they deplored the means and effect of religious conversion, looked upon the California Indians in their natural state as uncivilized and in need of help. Accounts written after 1815 began to list the grim statistics of Indian death by disease: measles, cholera, smallpox and "the disease given them by the Spanish soldiers" or syphilis. One account in 1816 stated ". . . of the 1000 Indians in San Francisco, 300 die annually. . ." By 1833, only 204 converted Indians were left at Mission Bay.

In 1806, G.H. von Landsdorff, a German doctor who accompanied Nicolai Rezanov on a Russian expedition to northern California, described the Indian dances:

In their dances the Indians remain almost always in the same place, endeavoring, partly with their bows and arrows, partly with the feathers they hold in their hands and wear on their heads, and also by measured springs, by different movements of their bodies, and by facial contortions, to imitate scenes of battle or of domestic life. Their music consists of singing and clapping with a stick at one end. The women have their own particular song, and their own particular way of dancing. They hop about near the men, but never in time with them. Their principal action is in pressing the abdomen with the thumb and forefinger, first to one side and then to the other.

Mission lands, according to custom, extended to meet the nearest adjacent mission holdings. In its first half-century, the Mission Dolores claimed land all the way from the Golden Gate southward to San Francisquito Creek. By law both mission and pueblo were entitled to four square leagues of land. At the time, much of the 46 square miles of the peninsula were covered with sand. San Francisco would be clearly an outpost of the great Spanish Empire. Only in the 1830s did commercial activity pick up, as it did all along the California coast, thanks to the hides and tallow the Californios could exchange for eastern and European manufactured goods.

Sailing past the Presidio in 1792, the Explorer George Vancouver dropped anchor at a sandy cove several miles down the bay from the Presidio which was called Yerba Buena. Ships demonstrated a preference for the spot over the exposed anchorage opposite the presidio as did the people. Forty years later permanent buildings were put up on the shore, and thus the pueblo moved to Yerba Buena. This center, recognized in 1835 as a "pueblo" under Mexican law, had as always, a plaza. Originally located adjacent to a natural shipping cove, it now lies inland because the City filled in Yerba Buena Cove. The old plaza is now Portsmouth Square located at Kearney and Clay Streets, depicted below on a copy of O' Farrell's 1847 Plan of San Francisco. Note that the map shows Portsmouth Square, as well as the filled-in Bay.

Site of 1835 'pueblo' plaza. Originally located adjacent to a natural shipping cove, it now lies inland because the City filled in Yerba Buena Cove. Map: O' Farrell's 1847 Plan of San Francisco. Note that the map shows Portsmouth Square, as well as the filled-in Bay.

As Yerba Buena was formally recognized, citizens such as Jacob P. Leese applied for lots. The need for a survey prompted the first formal survey of the town, that of Jean Jacques Vioget in 1839. His survey laid out a grid of blocks around the plaza, each block composed of six square lots.

Jean Jacques Vioget's survey map of 1839. His survey laid out a grid of blocks around the plaza, each block composed of six square lots.

Early American Period

In addition to the rancho owners, the peninsula had another claimant, the pueblo and now American city of Yerba Buena. Like other claimants, it too would have to submit a survey of its land even though city lots had already been granted since 1836 and would continue to be sold. Later surveys such as that of the City Surveyor William M. Eddy in 1851 repeated the pattern established by Vioget. Eddy's map is known as the "Red Line Map" since a dark red line showed the shoreline as it was in 1847 when the city was founded, with First Street at the shoreline. The outer line represented the farthest extension of filling permitted by the State Legislature. The intervening tidal flats were in the process of being filled, their names in place. Most of Yerba Buena Cove had been filled in. Yerba Buena Cemetery, on outer Market Street, was near the site of the present Civic Center.

This same year, 1851, San Francisco, as the successor to the pueblo of Yerba Buena, had put in a claim to the Land Commission for its four square leagues of land, a claim that was finally patented by the United States in 1884. In the interim a number of conflicting claims cases filled the courts wherein the grantees of Mission Dolores ranch land claimed title to the same land San Francisco called its pueblo land, but the mission eventually lost to the city.

The Gold Rush

The period 1849-1859 has been described as:

". . .the greatest mass movement of people since the crusades. They came by boat around the treacherous seas of the Horn, or made the dangerous journey across the malaria-ridden swamps of Panama; they came by foot, overland from Independence, Missouri, as soon as the spring grass was high enough to feed the oxen pulling their wagons" (Resource Consultants 1993: 33).
Incredibly, between 1847 and 1849, the population of the city rose from 459 to nearly 30,000. Housing was practically non-existant and most new arrivals were housed in canvas tents or rough-board shanties. Immigration continued to accelerate in succeeding years. In Yerba Buena Cove, a shifting mass of men from every nation in the world, having abandoned their ships, were soon on their way to Sacramento and the gold mines. Abandoned ships were quickly improvised for shelter or as store-ships by merchants (Resource Consultants 1993: 33, 38).

Maps drawn in the early 1850's show the extended waterfront as of that date, Battery, Front, and Davis Streets occupied, the wharves relocated ever deeper in the water, and the extensive marshlands that projected inland. In 1847 Market Street had been laid out at an angle pointing toward the old mission settlement, and later the streets south of Market were laid out parallel to Market, but in blocks four times as large as those to the north. Land was set aside for public use. With the Gold Rush, the population rose quickly to pass 35,000 in 1850 and to 56,800 by 1860. The business of the city demanded new services. To provide for the office needs of bankers, shippers, insurance companies, and miners, a Financial Center began with small brick buildings near Portsmouth Square and gradually spread southward with ever-larger buildings.

Developments South of Market Street and in the Vicinity of Seventh & Mission Streets

South of Market industry found cheaper sites on which to build foundries, coal and gas works, slaughterhouses, and warehouses. These businesses needed workers, and they came from a cosmopolitan group that had come to the city with the Gold Rush: Bavarians, Poles, Chinese, Chileans, French, Germans, Irish, Americans, and many others from all over the world. While the middle class tended to move farther from the city center in the 1850s, the working class sought housing close to work; thus, economic and social classes were separated.

The worker's dense settlements near the old city center segregated them from social groups who moved to new parts of the city. Contributing to these crowded conditions were the prevailing high land and rental rates. A typical worker could either go beyond the city limits or move himself and his family into a dilapidated building located in a filthy land lot or alley. These conditions abounded in the San Francisco of the 1850s and 1860s and were exemplified by the settlements of the working class south of Market Street. Powell Street had its first inhabitants in 1847 and by 1852 a limited omnibus service served the middle class. Street planking was widespread and the southwestern portion of Mission Street was labelled "Plank Street" in the early 1850's. Transit facilities, begun in 1854, operated between North Beach and South Park (Rincon Hill). By the 1860s, the professionals and merchants had deserted the city center. The more wealthy merchants built their homes on hills, leaving a minority of the middle class to live among the workers.

City Growth and a Cosmopolitan Ethnicity

The 1860s brought fortunes from silver mining to the city. Consequently, city services were expanded to areas in the vicinity of Seventh & Mission streets. Among these developments were a school at Market and Fifth Streets, a Market Street railroad, and by the late 1860s, a horse-drawn street railway system that enabled the user to pay a five-cent fare and transfer to virtually any part of the city. Horses did well on level sufaces, while the hills would wait for the invention of the cable car by Andrew S. Hallidie of London in 1873. Residential development often followed the routes of newly laid tracks. Senator Leland Stanford reportedly owned the franchise for the cable car line that surrounded the Seventh & Mission study area, and this was one reason for choosing the Seventh & Mission location for the new Post Office and Federal Court House.

The 1870 San Francisco census listed 75,842 males and 61,577 females. A large number of residents were still living in hotels or lodging houses. Restaurants did well and abounded. Even in the environs of the Seventh and Mission study area, we find several old hotels: the Seneca Hotel on Stevenson and Sixth Street (listed in Category III of the City Landmark List of Contributory Buildings - Block 3708, Lot 34) and the Delta Hotel at Sixth and Mission. Bay windows were a common architectural trait as exemplfied in the building presently located at Sixth and Jessie Streets. A great seawall to stabilize the waterfront was commenced in 1878 and finished some 40 years later. Architecture passed from a Greek Revival emphasis of the 1860s to Italianate, then Queen Anne in the 1890s.

Resident-serving businesses followed the architectural trends. A major retail center started on Kearny Street and grew to encompass Union Square and Market Street. However, the official listings of these retail centers fail to include any South of Market Street groupings. Street paving was well underway by the 1880s, and electrification of the car lines began in the 1890s.

While all of these changes affected the Seventh and Mission study area, the South of Market district continued to be devoted to wholesaling, small manufacturing, and alley residential buildings. A photograph held in the California Historical Society archives is captioned: "South of the Slot was more than a name of a district, it defined a whole segment of San Francisco life. The South of Market boys and girls lived in a crowded cluster of frame houses interspersed with and surrounded by small factories, warehouses, and railroad yards." Jessie Street, an alley that once ran through the study area, as well as Stevenson Street, are good candidates for this description; they contained many wooden buildings.

Development South of Market and in the Block 3703 Study Area

In the jargon of the City's history, the Seventh and Mission study area, Block 3703, lay "South of the Slot." Wrote Jack London:

The Slot was an iron crack that ran along the center of Market Street, and from the Slot arose the burr of the ceaseless, endless cable. North of the Slot were theater, hotels, and shopping districts, banks and respectable houses. South of the Slot were the factories, slums, laundries, machine shops, boiler works, and the abodes of [the] working class [from Cherney 1986:53].

In 1900, one out of every five people in San Francisco lived between Market and Townsend Streets, from the waterfront to Eleventh Street. Those boundaries, however did not enclose a homogenous work or living place. Closer to the wharves were the boiler factories and foundries, the homes of sailors and waterfront workers, the breweries and multiplicity of saloons. The most desirable sites in the neighborhood were occupied by saloons. San Francisco had more sailors than any other American city, even more than New York. As one looked to areas west and toward the Eleventh Street boundary, despite the many single male "lodgers," there were more women and families proportionately than in other areas of the city. Sailors were not the only single men in the boarding houses; lumbermen from Alaska and miners who came to the city with their "stake" swelled the "lodger" population. They lived mostly east of Sixth Street, and the census data of 1900 show a pattern of deprivation. Children of ten and twelve worked, and women worked as house cleaners. West of Sixth one would find more clerks and low-paid white-collar workers. Overall, half the population in the area at large were foreign born.

Before the earthquake and fire of 1906, much of the area consisted of two or three-story wooden rowhouses packed wall-to-wall. Larger masonry buildings stood on Mission Street. Narrow, residential alleys, such as Jessie and Stevenson streets, ran east and west, where wooden buildings and owners' neglect was the rule. In contrast, the Mission District, which began at Twelfth Street and spread west, was primarily an area of families. The Mission District had a population density far below the citywide average and much lower than the densely packed area to the east. Here were found large wooden churches and neighborhood businesses. Thus, we can look upon Block 3703, lying between Sixth and Seventh streets, as transitional; it was densely packed, with many foreign born workers and small businesses, but fewer saloons and no boiler factories.

The 1906 fire took out nearly all the buildings east of Ninth Street, and this downtown area fell within the newly drawn fire line. Brick buildings or other fireproof structures replaced the old. As the century progressed South of Market became more commercial, less residential, and buildings were torn down to allow for parking lots. It was during this 20th century development that the buildings we can document through property records in Block 3703 came to be built.

Historical Uses of Block 3703

It may be noted that on earlier City maps, such as the Butler Map of 1850, this block was described in deed records as Block 220. This was the time of large lots and before subdivisions. Still in the l00 Vara Area, its designation was changed to Block 393, and this held till as late as the 1930s. At that time Block 406 lay to the west and 380 to the east. It lay in the San Francisco Planning District X.2 "South of Market" bounded by Market, Ninth, Second and one block east of Townsend.

Perhaps better than any written record, photographs taken on the block during the construction of the Post Office and Court House circa 1900 tell us more about buildings there than any other source. On the South side of Mission at Seventh and running along the block toward Sixth we see three-story masonry buildings, with a six-story building at the southeast corner of Mission and Seventh. North of the ca. 1897 construction site is a two-story carriage factory. The sidewalks are wooden planks, the streets cobble or brick. A building on the south side of Mission is apparently wooden. From the foundation footprint of the U.S. Post Office and Court House, two and three-story wooden and brick buildings are seen to the immediate east, while a glimpse east down Jessie Street reveals wooden buildings packed closely together. Looking across Seventh Street from the building site we see two- and three-story wooden buildings, bay windows, and shops on the lower floors. The Odd Fellows Hall stands as a monument on the corner of Seventh and Market. A closer view of Jessie Street which abuts the Court House site displays two and three-story wooden residential structures and lodging houses, packed tightly and, of course, destined to burn. As the census data tell us, foreign born abounded. A picture taken of construction workers, including Irishmen imported specifically to work on the Court House, is among the Court House Library collection. In all likelihood, some of these men lived in the neighborhood. Returning to this portion of Jessie Street abutting the construction site, it was destined to be a parking lot, Lot 84, the Project Area.

Lot 84

Lot 84 (see Assessor's Map of Block 3703) obviously was composed of several small lots, and we begin to see a move toward this as early as 1947 when a Resolution was passed by the Board of Supervisors on July 2 "to close and abandon a portion of Jessie Street from a line 350 feet southwesterly from Sixth Street to a line 500 feet southwesterly from Sixth Street" (Resolution 6794, Book I, Pg. 107 recorded August 25, 1947, Map 314). This was not the first deletion from Jessie Street since it stood in the way of Court House development as well. Resolution 7252, August 2, 1892, and Resolution 7465, August 2, 1892, enabled this closure.

The closure of a portion of Jessie Street was apparently an early move toward eventual clearance of the lot in preparation for a parking lot. However, the history of the consolidation and of the people who took part dates back to at least 1913 when Isador Weinstein bought Lot 1 at the other end of the block and founded his line of Department Stores. The first store name to appear was that of Sterling Furniture, but in his obituary printed in 1943, he was described as "president and founder of Weinstein Company Inc., operating six department stores and survived by his widow Gertrude who lived at the Fairmount Hotel and a daughter Mrs. Ivan Anexter whose husband is Vice-President of the Chain. He founded the chain with a small store 36 years ago" (S.F. Chronicle, May l, 1943). After his death deed records for his family's holdings could be identified by the name Anexter, Sterling Furniture, Weinstein Investment, and as formation of Lot 84 proceeded, as "1049 Market" and Market Street Venture. His death in 1943 was but a footnote in the story of his firm's activity on Block 3703.

Lot 84 was recorded on November 30, 1973. The city lots deleted to form it were listed as follows: 18, 19, 21, 22, 23, 36, and 83. All of these lots had been in the hands of the Weinstein Company, listed as "1049 Market" in the 1963 deed records and sold to Peter Joseph, Trustee, on May 1, 1964. All were sold again to Barrett Transportation Inc. on January 31, 1967 (Deeds, Book 114:189). A building permit (294275, 1-28-64) applying for a sign in 1964 was signed by "Owner, Barrett" indicating that Trustee Joseph was actually acting in his behalf in 1964. The address given in those days for the big lot was 1060 Mission. Barrett Transportation deeded the lot to Barrett Garages June 28, 1971 (Deeds Book 535:21). Barrett Garages deeded the lot (84) to Edmound and Helen Barrett on October 10, 1979 and they in turn on that day deeded the lot to Timothy and Carol Barrett (Deeds C873:179 and C873:181). The San Francisco Realty Book 1992-1993 (Assessor's Office) lists Timothy M. and Carol M. Barrett as owners of Lot 84 today. In sum, Lot 84 was put together by the Weinstein heirs and sold to Barrett Transportation whose heirs own it today.

It should be noted that Larry Barrett, leasing and garage executive, died in 1970 and a long obituary appeared in the San Francisco Chronicle at the time. Whether we can relate Larry to the data above is not clear. His brother was a major contractor, Barrett Construction, and was used for wrecking buildings in the earlier stages of the parking lot venture in 1959. However, at that time, the Weinstein heirs were the owners. The address was 1060 Mission (Building Permit 220217. 3-18-59).

The major task of bringing the lots together had evidently fallen to the Weinstein Investment firm which in October 1, 1963 bought lots 17, 18, 21, 22, 23, 36, 46, and 67 under the title of "1049 Market Street" which was the Weinstein Department Store Market Street address. His purchase of property within the lot began as we have seen in 1913. Our task now is to trace the history through deeds and building permits of these lots he or his heirs would need for the consolidation. The above and following data on chain of title was taken from San Francisco Records Department, Sales and Deeds. In 1923 he bought Lot 18. Lots 17-21 lay on the north side of Jessie where the parking lot would one day lie. Lot 19 was a consolidation of lots 20, 43, 44, and 45 confirmed in 1943. Lot 19 had been the property of Charlotte Manor et al. and Henry Robinet in 1914 and lay on Jessie Street. In 1926 Weinstein had bought Lot 21, a lot we can trace back to Sarah Morgan who deeded it to her children in 1924. Lot 23 belonged to several families in 1914: namely, Beirne, O Rourke, Schaefer, McCarthy. In 1919 they sold it to Mae Somers Peterson (one half) and to Mary K. Somers and George B. Somers, (each a quarter). It lay on Jessie Street. On Weinstein's death in 1943 it was in the hands of Sterling Furniture and transferred to Weinstein Investment in 1947. It was merged into Lot 35 (Assessors Map Book 25:3703 n.d.).

Lot 22, which lay directly to the north of Lot 40, had belonged to M.M. Smith and Howard Saxe. Lot 36 came from a combination of Lots 37, 38, and 39 in 1922.(Assessor's Map Book 25:3703 n.d.). Edith Kaufman owned 36 in 1942. (Planning Dept. Assessor Block Book n.d.). In 1935, Kaufman shared ownership with the Estate of M. Somers and several of the Petersons, and they sold it to Sterling Furniture (Weinstein) in January of 1946. Somers, Peterson, and Kaufman, the more recent owners appear to have inherited land or to have been in the business of land holding. Further back in time we find names such as Bert and Stella Gasset and Lizzie Morgan and Oliver Blanchard attached to the property which hint at individual ownership or family ownership. Lot 83 was late in formation.

Lot 84 or parts of it have been dedicated to parking since at least 1959.

The Department of Public Works (DPW) furnished us with all the building permits they held on both the addresses 1064 and 1068. Since the address 1064 now applies to the enlarged Lot 84, the file carried various Mission Street addresses, but did not hold permits from the other streets these lots represented, for example, Jessie Street. The file went no further back than 1922. In 1922 George B. Somers built a 2-story concrete building at 1050 Mission, Class C, with stores and lofts with pine joists and girders. The lot had a 125' frontage and was 160' deep. In 1931 Somers Estate gave an address of 1050-1066 Mission for stores they would alter: install tile and window bulkheads. J.L. Ash signed as owner of 1062 Mission in 193l when he applied for a mezzanine floor for his wallpaper store. In 1935 a Mr. Bowman applied for a sign for his Bowman Hotel Supply store at 1058 Mission. In 1936 the Estate of F. Somers Peterson applied for alterations to their store-offices, to install windows for their tenant the Bakery Equipment Co. In 1938 Kindel and Graham at 1058 applied for a sign. The Sullivan Estate applied for an entrance to the parking lot to lead from their stores and hotel to the lot. All walls and ceilings were to be fire-proofed. In 1959 ,we learned above that Sterling Furniture, 1049 Market, AKA Weinstein heirs, hired Barrett Construction to demolish buildings and prepare the lot at 1060 Mission, 350' north of 7th Street on the north side of Mission, for parking. Its present use was described as vacant (Building Permits DPW, 1064 Mission File n.d.). No permits appeared for fencing or paving. The more recent applications, 1977, were devoted to signs. In sum, we see a pattern of lot consolidation, stores, and finally clearing for the parking lot.

Lot 40

Lot 40, unlike Lot 84, appeared on city maps as 40 for as far back as this research permitted (Assessor's Map of Block 3703). The present owners of this lot, street address, 1068 Mission, and its 2-story plus mezzanine building are Franklin and Zeva S. Cohn. They bought the property from Sui Yee Keung and Mee Jing in 1982. Prior to the Keung and Jing ownership (1980-1982) the lot had long been the property of A. Dale and Dorothy Wiseman who bought it in 1950 from the Annie Katie Bank. Prior to Bank, the property had been owned, at least in part, by a conglomerate of owners named Strange, Anglo California National Bank, Leon, Ruth, and James Loupe and Ada Dexter (Recorders Office, Deeds and Sales, Book D070:050 and Book D392:1071).

Building permits do not tell us when the building was constructed, but it was in place when Wiseman bought the property in 1950. He immediately applied for a permit to resurface the floors. Between 1950 and 1980 Dr. Wiseman, a dentist, made numerous alterations to the existing building. He changed the mezzanine partitions, leased Foster and Kleiser sign space on the side of the building, moved the furnace to the basement, built washrooms, added aluminum siding, attempted to add to the mezzanine space and was not granted permission in 1962, and put in new floors. He ran a dental supply house called The Denticator Co. Inc. (Building Permits, 1068 Mission, DPW, San Francisco).

After the Cohn's bought the building they demolished the existing interior in preparation for their own three offices and spent $l50,000 on alterations. In October of that year they declared the building empty as they removed the aluminum facade and installed fire sprinklers, later framing the awnings in 1985. No further permits appear in the file (DPW).

Title Search

In a general sense, we can trace occupancy for the recent past through chain of title. This has shown the Project Area to have been the locus of stores and parking since lot consolidation commenced in the 1920s. Ownership on the block at large in the 1980s was not all Anglo, and as with Lot 40, oriental names appeared: Wong, Kong, Ho Wai. A century before and a block away to the east on Stevenson lay a center for Chinese laundrymen, many of them. The laundries spilled over onto the 900 block of Mission adjacent to the area (Records of the Bureau of Census, Record Group 29 1880).

Taking advantage again of Cherney's research which was presented in a book entitled, San Francisco 1865-1932: Politics, Power and Urban Development, we have a chart of the "Composition of the Work Force, by Occupational Categories and Parents' Place of Birth, 1900" (Cherney 1986:57, see Table). It was taken from the South of Market District and it shows that this district housed many foreign born. A glance at the census data for Block 3703 for the years 1880, 1900, 1910, and 1920 suggests that a large number of the occupants were foreign born. Therefore, the expansion Project Area contained a mixture of ethnic groups from the lower to middle class economic status. In sum, these families of diverse ethnicity lived in crowded urban conditions and in close proximity to commercial, business, public and religious institutions within and adjacent to the Project Area. Research to date infers that this pattern persisted from the third-quarter 19th century until after the 1906 earthquake, when residential buildings and activities were replaced with commercial and business structures and activities.

The San Francisco Earthquake and Fire of 1906

1906 earthquake damage at Seventh and MissionLeft: 1906 earthquake damage at Seventh and Mission.

San Francisco suffered a major change on April 18, 1906 when the 7.9 Richter Scale earthquake struck and a fire raged for three days, destroying at least 28,000 buildings and almost everything east of Van Ness Avenue and north of Duboce Street. At the time of the earthquake, San Francisco was the major city of the west, in the midst of a building boom. After the earthquake, however, only about 25 salvageable buildings remained.




1906 earthquake damage at Seventh and MissionLeft: Earthquake damage near Seventh and Mission, looking west.

A report on the effects of the earthquake on the study zone is furnished in the report by Farneth et al. (1984) on the Court of Appeals and Post Office building. Accordingly, the custodian wired Washington on the following day that "the Post Office may collapse at any time," (Farneth et al. 1984:10). "Furniture was overturned and extensive cracks did appear in the masonry. Mission Street dropped 3 1/2 feet and Seventh Street sank 1 1/2 feet, creating the appearance of a heaving sea frozen into one of its wildest contortions ... The northeast and northwest corners of the building remained nearly level, but the southeast corner racked and the ground at the southwest corner subsided about 23 feet causing the entire surface of the building line to move out about five feet to the south" (Farneth et al. 1984:10). The subsidsence was no doubt aggravated by the nature of the filled-in former marsh lands of Mission Bay.

A quote from Gladys Hansen's Earthquake Almanac: 1880-1914 Earthquakes states:

The Historic Structure Report for the U.S. Court of Appeals and Post Office (Farneth et al. 1984) goes on to say that the fires sweeping the city engulfed the wood buildings on Stevenson Street leaving them in ashes and entered the post office later in the day. The Post Office was saved, but on April 23rd a dynamiting squad blasted the foundations of the Odd Fellows Building across the street from it. The explosions broke every pane of glass and blew down marble cornice work and mosaics at the Post Office; nonetheless, it was one of the few structures left standing in San Francisco. Work to repair it was completed in March, 1910.

We have less documentation for neighboring structures, although some photos show streets covered with loose brick, billows of fire, and refugees huddled amid the rubble in the shelter of the Mint at Fifth and Mission.

Aftermath

After the 1906 fire, the use of brick and other fire-proof construction materials were required within specified zones. The use of fire-proof construction materials had been encouraged in San Francisco since the devasting fire of June 22, 1851.

The city was rebuilt quickly and the same economic patterns continued. North Beach was almost totally reconstructed by 1907. In fact, in that year, 6,000 buildings were completed. By 1909, the city was virtually rebuilt. The newly rebuilt financial and retail districts obtained a common architectural imagery rooted in the Beaux Arts training of many of the leading architects.

However, many "lesser" buildings continued to be traditional two-and-three-story brick or frame, including many of the structures located in the Seventh and Mission vicinity. Exceptions to this pattern are the six-story buildings such as the Eastern Outfitting Building just east of Seventh Street, which faces Market Street as well. On Jessie Street, a four-story brick building covers the lot through to Stevenson Street. The Baldwin House at Jesse and Sixth and the Yellow brick Seneca Hotel follow this same building pattern. The large San Rafael Hotel and Apartment House, situated to the southeast across Mission Street from the Courthouse, is impressive. The Odd Fellows Hall, dynamited after the earthquake, had been reconstructed. Still, in 1910, Block 3703 had many vacant lots.

In 1915 the citizens celebrated the reconstruction by hosting the Panama Pacific International Expo, on newly filled land in the Marina District. In time for this Expo the present Civic Center was planned and began to rise. Essentially completed about 1935, these governmental buildings so thoroughly embody the City Beautiful ideals of the early 20th century that they were declared a National Historic Landmark in 1987.

The city expanded, covering in the downtown about 50% more area than the pre-fire downtown. Hotels moved to an area west and south of the Union Square, and a theater district developed on Market Street southwest of Fifth. The Odd Fellows Hall at Market and Seventh now belongs as a contributory building to the Market Street Theater and Loft District on the National Register of Historic Places. Several other buildings in the 1000 block of Market Street are also contributors to that district (Wolly 1993, personal communication). The Grand Hotel at 30-34 Seventh Street (1907) and the Hotel Odeon at 36-52 Seventh Street belong to this trend.

The 1920 census showed the San Francisco population to be 416,912. The building boom went ahead until the crash of 1929. The monumental Pacific Coast Stock Exchange Building was in progress and continued to completion in 1931. Although the depression halted construction, much of the city had taken the physical shape it has today. The Financial District was full of fireproof steel frame skyscrapers clad in historic imagery. The retail district had similar but shorter buildings. The major hotels were in place; buildings were erected for entertainment. Wholesaling, small manufacturing and alley residential were present in the South of Market district. Brick or concrete and stucco multi-unit residential or residential and commercial buildings of 3-6 stories filled Chinatown, the Tenderloin, and Lower Nob Hill Districts. Other apartment buildings, usually frame, but some brick or Class A, covered the rest of the fire-devastated districts. Many outer residential areas were built, along with their neighborhood commercial districts.

After the turn of the century architectural choices had changed. Joining the rest of the country in a search for historical roots, San Franciscans turned to Mission, Spanish colonial and Mediterranean Revival designs. Craftsman, Bungalow, and Art Deco came into vogue.

The downtown expanded to encompass the area from Market Street to Eighth Street, thus finally bringing the Courthouse and the block under study (Block 3703) into the hub of the city. When the Golden Gate and Bay Bridges opened in 1937 traffic grew as did the demand for new parking garages and lots. We see a move to consolidate lots, to tear down buildings and to provide large pieces of open land. Garages became big business. After World War II the Modern design in architecture died out and architects departed from the past to design in the Corporate International Style: steel and concrete, curtain walls. During the 1960s while the Department of Planning responded to the need for new policies to control the high rise buildings, it also responded to the need to preserve San Francisco's architectural heritage. Thus, in 1967 it established the Landmarks Preservation Advisory Board.

Results of the Archival Study and a Design for Future Research at Lots 84 and 40, Block 3703 Expansion [Adapted from ACS (1994: 82-122)]

Research Methods

A multi-disciplinary approach was used during this cultural resource management project. Archival documents and cartographic research, oral history interviews, as well as archaeological reconnaissance were all used to locate, define, and provide interpretations for the cultural resources within the Project Area. Furthermore, this data was combined to reconstruct the most accurate picture of the Project Area and surrounding areas. In turn, the research data is useful in the construction of the historic context with which we can evaluate the significance of the sites identified within the Project Area. This section discusses the research methods and strategies.

Archival Research

Historical Resources Records Check

A Historical Resources Records Search was conducted by the Northwest Information Center, Sonoma State University, Rohnert Park, for this project (Hagel 1993). The Records Search indicated that one prehistoric cultural resources site, two historic archaeological sites including the U.S. Post Office and Courthouse were previously recorded within a two block radius of the Project Area. Table 2 contained data on archaeological sites within a one mile radius of Rincon Hill within the Peninsula. A low - moderate number of prehistoric sites and a high number of historic archaeological and/or architectural sites were presented in that table. Thus, the area surrounding the Project Area is highly sensitive regarding historic period cultural resources in particular.

Documentary Research

ACS staff researched primary and secondary sources relating to the Project Area. These documents pertaining to the history of the Project Area were consulted in order to produce the environmental context and cultural historic context for this project, as well as data on potential site loci. Research was conducted prior to fieldwork, concurrent with fieldwork and after fieldwork was completed.

Primary references included cartographic or map documentation, Local, State, and Federal government records, newspaper articles, census records, photographs, patents, aerial photographs and related historic documentation. The maps presented in this text are good examples of historic cartographic or map references.

Secondary sources included general histories written about the Project Area and environs, documents relating to histories of San Francisco, and reports and publications relating to cultural resources within the general proximity of the Project Area. Previous reports on cultural resources investigations were consulted for refinement of the cultural history in the vicinity of the Project Area. Furthermore, the reports were reviewed in order to ascertain the types of cultural resources (i.e., archaeological, ethnographic, historic, and architectural) which may occur in the Project Area.

Federal, State and Local historic preservation standards and guidelines were reviewed to insure legal compliance for the project.

Reference materials were consulted at the following institutions:

- Northwest Information Center, Sonoma State University,
Rohnert Park, CA;
- General Services Administration, Region 9, San Francisco, CA;
- National Park Service, Western Regional Office,
San Francisco, CA;
- National Archives, Pacific Northwest Branch, San Bruno, CA;
- California State University, Northridge, CA;
- Bancroft Library, Berkeley, CA;
- San Francisco Public Library, History Room, San Francisco, CA;
- Monterey Public Library, History Room, Monterey, CA;
- San Francisco Assessors and Recorders Office,
San Francisco, CA;
- San Francisco Planning Department, San Francisco, CA;
- San Francisco Zoning Department, San Francisco, CA;
- San Francisco Department of Health, San Francisco, CA;
- U.S. Court of Appeals, Facilities Manager, San Francisco, CA;
- Geomatrix Consultants, Inc, San Francisco, CA;
- California Office of Historic Preservation, Sacramento, CA.
- library at the Archaeological Consulting Services office, Lytle Creek, CA.

Oral History Interviews

Oral history interviews were conducted with the following individuals:

- Ms. Joan Byrens, Facilities Planner- Regional Historic Preservation Officer, GSA;
- Mr. Don Bednarz, Realty Specialist, GSA;
- Ms. Sarah Delgado, Project Manager, GSA;
- Mr. John Egan, Senior Engineer, Geomatrix Consultants;
- Mr. Gordon Chappell, Historian, NPS-WRO;
- Dr. Roger Kelly, Archaeologist, NPS-WRO;
- Dr. Adrian Praetzellis, Director, Anthropological Studies Center, Sonoma State University;
- Mr. Jack McIlroy, Historical Archaeologist, Anthropological Studies Center, Sonoma State University;
- Mr. Rollins Emerson, Historian, Judge Sneed's Chambers, U.S. Court of Appeals, San Francisco;
- Mr. Bradley Williams, Director, Ninth Judicial Circuit Historical Society, Pasadena;
- Mr. Robert Andreini, Archivist, San Francisco Heritage Foundation;
- Ms. Meredith Blain, Aide to Clerk of the U.S. Court of Appeals, 9th Circuit, San Francisco;
- Dr. Robert Cherney, Historian, author of San Francisco: 1865-1932.
- Mr. Robert Lindell, Facilities Manager, U.S. Court of Appeals, 9th Circuit, San Francisco;
- Mr. Vincent Marsh, Secretary, Landmarks Board, San Francisco Planning Department;
- Mr. David Williams, Historian, author of David C. Broderick, A Political Portrait;
- Ms. Diane Wong, Planning Officer, City of San Francisco;
- Eva Vanek, Project Manager; GEO/RESOURCE Consultants; and
- Mr. Leo Barker, Historical Archaeologist, NPS-WRO.

Field Research

Architectural Reconnaissance

The exteriors of the U.S. Court of Appeals Building at 99 Seventh Street, as well as the two-story brick building at 1068 Mission Street were analyzed by ACS. A Historic Resource Inventory Form for the building at 1068 Mission Street is in preparation (DPR 523). Data on this form was supplemented by 35 mm. black-and-white and color slide photography. This preliminary architectural documentation was conducted in early April, 1993.

Archaeological Reconnaissance

An initial archaeological reconnaissance of the Project Area was conducted by J. Stephen Alexandrowicz on April 12, 1993. The primary mission for the field reconnaissance was to record the extant conditions within the Project Area, as well as ascertain the potential presence of sub-surface cultural resources, based on the visual observation of the urban landscape. Photographs in 35 mm format were taken of the Project Area for future reference. In addition, ACS visited the U.S. Court of Appeals building, where on-going excavations were underway. He collected artifacts from the southwest corner of the building. ACS photographed the trenching operations and observed the stratigraphy in direct proximity of the U.S. Court of Appeals building, situated west and adjacent to the current Project Area.

Summary Results

Geologic and environmental research suggests that the original landscape within the expansion project area is buried approximately 30-35 feet below the ground surface. Geologic core drilling data suggests that this horizon represents a previous marshlands environment. Prehistoric Native American occupation within a similar marshlands environment was documented two blocks southwest at the BART Station, where a circa 4900 BP human burial was excavated. This nearby evidence suggests that the Block 3703 area contains buried deposits of a mudflat marshlands environment that may contain prehistoric and early historic cultural materials.

The Block 3703 area is on the fringe of marshlands that were filled in during the 1850s with dune sands during San Francisco's early development. The filled-in areas were used for the construction of city facilities, residential dwellings, and cottage industries. Historic occupations in the area were traced to ca. 1869. However, undocumented occupations may predate the documented occupations by a few years. Geologic core drilling data reveals a fill zone of rumble and sand representing the remains of the historic period occupation, probably dating to the 1860s. The area was part of a neighborhood with Irish, American, German, Swedish and other ethnic groups represented during the late 19th century. A fairly large percentage of lodgers were Japanese in the late 1890s-1900s. Occupations by members of the same family were traced in several cases for up to 40 years at the same location.

It is interesting to note that many lots retained their ca. 1910s structures between Stevenson and Jessie Streets, including a 1920s-30s building between Jessie and Mission Streets, until the area was cleared for a parking lot prior to 1959. Based on the building permits on file with the city, no large-scale construction has occurred since those dates. This suggests that the ca. 1910s-1930s structures may have had basements, despite the absence of "basement" notations on the Sanborn Map Co. maps. The presence of an intact brick drain under Jessie Street, coupled with the geophysical data, also suggests that the ca. 1910s-1930s building foundations may be present below the ground surface. However, these basements may not have destroyed the archaeological deposits associated with the earlier 19th century occupations within the original lots. The earlier cultural deposits (i.e., prehistoric and/or historic) may also be preserved intact. Possible cultural features buried and preserved in the area include prehistoric sites and burials, as well as dwelling foundations, privies, wells, cisterns, and trash pits from the ca. 1870s -1890s.

Of equal importance is the fact that many occupations at the respective lots of Block 3703 retain the 1931 revised address numbers. These address numbers are directly correlated to the addresses from the earlier Sanborn maps. The size of the lots are designated on Block Book Maps, as well as in the deeds. Thus, the archaeological deposits have the potential to be segregated to discrete occupations within each lot.

Duration of the occupations within the Block 3703 study area vary from about one to forty years. Several families, including the McGarys, and Somerses on Mission Street; the McMenomys on the south side of Jessie Street; the Swedish Church on the north side of Jessie Street; and the Gendars, Creegans, and Ameses on Stevenson Street had occupations within the study area that spanned from about 1870 to 1906. This included several generations within the nuclear families that occupied the dwellings after the passing of their parents. Furthermore, Louis Borie's (or Borle's) occupation at 1038 (now 1066) Mission Street in 1873 testifies to other early, yet more transient occupation.

A review of the 1900 census for the Project Area indicates that this particular South of Market neighborhood was composed of approximately 39% Irish, 37% American, 13% German, 7% Swedish, and 4% unknown. The census data shows a marked increase of Irish residents compared with Burchell's (1980:Table 3) 1880 data which stated that the Irish composed 31.2% of the entire Ward 10 population. Other census data included members from Prussian, Japanese, and Welsh ethnic groups. Members of each ethnic group tended to live together in small enclaves. This is especially true of the Japanese occupants who congregated at two residential loci. It is interesting that African-Americans and Chinese are conspicuously missing from the ethnic register of occupants. The preponderance of Irish citizens in the Project Area leads to additional research questions regarding the social and economic conditions (i.e., potato famines) in Ireland that led to a mass migration of the Irish and resettlement in an Irish neighborhood within the southwest portion of San Francisco.

The original residential setting was upset during the 1906 earthquake and fire. Except for the U.S. Post Office and Court House, the area was completely burned. Several brick buildings along Stevenson and Jessie were built ca. 1910. Another large concrete building was built between Jessie and Mission Streets in the 1920s to 1930s. These buildings were destroyed between 1952 and 1959. A parking lot has existed in the area since that time.

In summary, this archival study has resulted in the identification of approximately 24 residential sites within the Expansion Project Area of Block 3703 dating from at least 1869-1870 until the 1906 Earthquake and Fire. Of these sites, 24 are depicted on the Sanborn Map Company Maps from 1887 and 1899. Most of the sites are residential dwellings, albeit by 1899, a saloon was also in place at 549 Stevenson, and the Swedish Church was located at 538 Jessie Street. The extant (circa 1994) brick structure at 1068 Mission Street is part of the 24th cultural resources site identified within the Expansion Project Area. The building was apparently built during the 1920s or 1930s and it is still standing today; it is the last and only early 20th century structure within the expansion Project Area (Lots 84 and 40, Block 3703).

Recommended Additional Research

The ACS (1994) archival and background literature study has demonstrated that a good potential exists for further research and for the existence of significant archeological remains within Block 3703 and the expansion project area (Lots 84 and 40). In the future, if ground-disurbing actions are proposed in the area, a program of archival, architectural, and archeological recording and testing should be carried out in order to preserve and protect important cultural sites and features.

The Dowager Queen of Western Federal Architecture: Restoration of the U.S. Court of Appeals Building, formerly the Post Office and Federal Court House, one of America's most ornate public structures
[Adapted from U.S. General Services Administration (1997)]

1905 postcard of Post Office Building at Seventh & Mission, San Francisco. From 'United States Court of Appeals Building for the Ninth Circuit,' General Services Administration, Public Buildings Service, Washington, D.C., page viii.

An Architectural Masterpiece

The The U.S. Court of Appeals Building at Seventh & Mission Streets has been described as one of the most ornate public buildings in America. It was designed by James Knox Taylor, Supervising Architect of the U.S. Treasury Department, and built in the Italian Renaissance Palazzo style. It was one of the few buildings to survive the 1906 San Francisco earthquake and was placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1971. The U.S. General Services Administration has undertaken an extensive program of seismic stabilization and restoration of the building.


Walking through its gleaming marble halls and ornate courtrooms, one is dazzled by the opulence of materials—a rich variety of marbles and mahoganies, redwood, bronze, colored Venetian glass and porcelain tile—and the extraordinary craftsmanship that created these exquisitely detailed interiors. With its grand marble colonnades, cherubs and vaulted ceilings adorned with intricate mosaics and classical tracery, the building feels like a Florentine Renaissance palazzo. It is one of the finest examples of the American Renaissance style—a distinctly American expression of French Beaux-Arts classicism—that dominated civic architecture at the turn of the century. The imposing granite edifice was designed in the 1890s by James Knox Taylor, chief architect for the U.S. Treasury Department, to house the federal courts and the main San Francisco post office. Taylor oversaw the construction of many Beaux Arts federal buildings around the country. The San Francisco courthouse, which opened in I905, is his masterpiece. In its grandeur, extravagance and exuberance, the building expresses the wealth, optimism and pride of a nation proclaiming its new status as a great imperial power.

San Francisco's Resilient Edifice

And what better place to erect such a splendid edifice than San Francisco? Built with overnight fortunes in gold and silver by shipping magnates and railroad robber barons, the exotic city at the edge of the continent had become a booming American metropolis. It had transformed itself in two decades from a sleepy pueblo into the financial and cultural capital of the West. It was the gateway to the Pacific and Asia, a cosmopolitan city famous worldwide for its opulence and flair. But the magic city mythologized by Twain and Stevenson was all but destroyed by the devastating 1906 earthquake and fire. While structures all around it crumbled and burned, the courthouse-post office survived the shaker with relatively little damage. Thanks to the heroic effort of postal workers who battled the flames with water-soaked mail sacks, the building was saved from the fires that devoured the city. It was one of the few structures left standing amid the ruins of San Francisco. It served as a symbol of hope and a vital center of communication and commerce in the weeks after the disaster. The landmark building became part of the city's colorful lore, along with the sensational trials of conspirators, bank robbers and bootleggers held in its baroque courtrooms. It was placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1971. Then disaster struck again on October 17, 1989, when the Loma Prieta earthquake rocked San Francisco. This time the building suffered major structural damage and had to be closed. Federal officials had two options: tear it down and build a new home for the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, or repair, upgrade and restore this historic building to its original splendor. The choice seemed obvious. After a $91 million seismic retrofit and restoration, the building reopened on the seventh anniversary of the Loma Prieta earthquake.

Early History

Following the explosion of settlement and commerce brought by the Gold Rush of the 1850s, the courts and their ever-expanding staff would be housed in a series of downtown buildings. But it was clear by the 1870s that a new federal building was needed to accommodate the court's heavy caseload, and the U.S. Postal Service, which had outgrown its cramped quarters at the old U.S. Customs House on Battery Street. The post office had opened in San Francisco in 1848, working out of a small wooden building on Clay Street at Waverly Place in what is now Chinatown. In those days, prior to the opening of the Transcontinental Railroad in 1869, the mail came by steamship twice a month. Isolated and hungry for news from the East, San Franciscans stood for hours in long lines waiting to get their mail on Steamer Days.

A Call for a New Federal Building

By the 1880s, Washington could no longer ignore San Francisco's call for a new federal building. It had become a city of great wealth and culture—"the city that was never a town," in the famous words of humorist Will Rogers—fueled by the fabulous fortunes of the Big Four and the Comstock Lode silver kings. In 1885, U.S. Congressman William Morrow of San Francisco introduced a bill to appropriate $350,000 to buy a site in San Francisco on which to build a new courthouse and post office. It languished for two years but was finally passed in March, 1887. The Secretaty of the Treasury selected a three-man commission, which included San Francisco Postmaster W.C. Bryan, to find suitable property. When they reported $350,000 could not buy much, Congress eventually raised the allocation to $1,250,000. After considering two dozen sites, the commissioners opted to buy a big sandy lot at the corner of Seventh and Mission Streets. They ranked it second in desirability because of its distance from the central business district. The site was more than a mile from downtown in a working class neighborhood of Irish and German immigrants, warehouses and blacksmith shops. Unbeknown to federal officials at the time, an underground creek lay beneath the southwest corner. "Seventh and Mission was way out in the sticks, way out in the sand dunes," recalled Martin J. O'Donnell, a postal clerk at the turn of the century, "and lots of people thought it was too far from the center of things." The commissioners apparently did not. In December, 1891, the federal government signed an agreement to pay property owner LeRoy G. Harvey $1,040,000 in gold for the 142,625 square-foot lot. It was a controversial deal that triggered accusations of corruption and payoffs. But it went through nonetheless.

Taylor's design, with its classical grandeur and emphasis on luxurious material and fine craftsmanship, exemplified the American Renaissance mode of architecture. Drawing on Italian Renaissance and classical forms and ornamentation, the style was developed in the 1890s by American disciples of the Ecole des Beaux Arts. The Treasury Department had decided to adopt this "Classical style" for all buildings, Taylor wrote in 1891, because "this style is best suited for Government buildings. The experience of centuries has demonstrated that no form of architecture is so pleasing to the great mass of mankind as the classic." And in San Francisco, the architect created one of the country's most magnificent neo-classical buildings.

It took eight years to complete the U.S. Courthouse and Post Office after ground was broken in 1897. Seeing the extraordinary richness of its interiors - created by scores of imported Italian stone masons, marble workers and wood carvers - one can understand why it took so long. When the building finally opened in 1905, Sunset Magazine called it "A post office that's a palace." That wasn't hyperbole.

Dazzling Interiors

As impressive as the exterior is, the lavish interiors are what have dazzled visitors for 90 years. Passing through massive bronze doors, one enters the grand first-floor hallway. The walls are paneled in black-veined white Italian marble, trimmed with green marble from Maryland and Vermont. Intricate marble mosaics adorn the groin-vaulted ceilings. A multicolored ceramic-tile mosaic covers the floor. In the rotunda at either end, a stained-glass dome is ringed by a quartet of marble-tile eagles. Every floor offers an extraordinary range of imported and domestic marbles: red Numidian from North Africa, white Povonezza, Carrara and yellow Siena from Italy, Tennessee Imperial Pink, Vermont Verde, Black Belgian, Pacific Coast Salmon Pink, Georgia Gray. Rare in 1905, some of these marbles are irreplaceable today. There is also a rich variety of wood: white and dark Mexican mahogany, red mahogany from East India, antique oak, curly Northern California red-wood. Wood workers carved countless garlands, rosettes and other classical details on doors and molding throughout the building.

Beautiful Venetian glass mosaics, in glimmering shades of blue, green, red and gold, adorn the hallways of the second floor. The craftsmen inlaid these mosaics, a revival of an ancient Assyrian art, in decorative panels using five or six different colors of marble. These glass and marble compositions appear in even more elaborate designs on the third floor.

The bounty of California agriculture is expressed in the garlands of fruits and vegetables —corn, pears, apples, grapes and artichokes—carved in marble around the columns and door frames. The motif also appears in the exuberantly ornamented ceiling. Three ceramic mosaic lunettes decorate the south wall, depicting "Sciences, Literature and the Arts," the "Philippines, Puerto Rico, Columbia, and Hawaii, " and "Agriculture, California, and Mining."

The Great Hall, a glowing corridor of white marble walls and Doric columns, was descibed in 1905 as "a thing of beauty and a joy forever."

It leads to Coutroom Numer One, the most lavish room in the building, which overwhelms you with its extravagance: a melange of marble mosaics, columns and carved Corinthian capitals, cast-plaster cupids and flowers, and stained glass windows, are truly awesome to behold.

Courtroom Number Two is smaller and far more restrained. Created for the Circuit Court, it is elegant in its comparative simplicity. The sides of the mahogany benches for the judge and clerk are covered with beautiful slabs of red Numidian marble, inlaid with a blue and white glass mosaic. Two big white marble caryatids—female figures the Greeks sculpted in columns—stand behind the bench. Their heads support a cornice that provides a perch for a pair of marble eagles.

Courtroom Number Three was designed for the future expansion of the District Court. It is similar to Courtroom Number One, but less elaborate. It has three ceramic lunettes, depicting the themes: "Justice of the Law," "Wisdom of the Law," and "Majesty of the Law." There are also three stained-glass skylights.

The judges' chambers and conference rooms display the same opulent finishes and fine craftsmanship. All the suites have fireplaces, each made of a different marble, many of them elaborately carved. The Redwood Room, designed as the library for District Judge J. DeHaven, is a masterpiece of the woodcarver's art. It is covered in exquisitely carved redwood from Northern California. There are intricately carved owls, lions, fruits and shields. The heavy beams that span the ceiling are supported by brackets carved in the form of an ancient nautical figure who blows the wind. Raving about these splendid rooms in the September 1905 issue of Sunset Magazine, Francis J. Dyer wrote, "The whole structure has a palatial effect not often secured in the public edifices of the world's greatest democracy." The building, he wrote, was considered to "be more beautiful than any other public structure in the United States, with the possible exception of the Library of Congress, built in 1899. In the opinion of the experts, it is the best constructed building in the United States." The validity of that statement would be tested seven months later, when the earth shook and shattered the fabled city of St. Francis.

1906: The Building Is Saved

Most San Franciscans were asleep when their world came crashing down. It was 5:13 a.m. on April 18, 1906. The earth shook with a terrific rumble, jolting the city with a series of tremors that toppled buildings and tore gaping fissures in the streets. People were buried under piles of brick and glass. The quake broke gas lines and overturned stoves, starting more than 50 fires. It also burst the water mains, leaving firemen helpless to fight the fires. The fires merged into one massive conflagration that raged through the city for three days, destroying most of San Francisco. The U.S. Courthouse and Post Office was one of the few San Francisco buildings to survive the catastrophe.

1906 earthquake damage at Seventh and Mission "The street was like a heaving sea," wrote a postal worker, "frozen in one of its wildest contortions." The marshy ground at the southwest corner of the building sank considerably more, causing the entire building to slide five feet to the south. But the great gray lady still stood, relatively undamaged. As the fires swept westward, hundreds of panicked citizens, running from the flames that were engulfing the city, sought refuge at the post office. "They came laden with household goods and food," wrote an anonymous postal employee in a report titled "Account of San Francisco Earthquake and Fire of April 18, 1906." Women screaming, babies crying, the whole street was filled with a mob that was fearful to look at. Within a half-hour of the quake, they had filled the lawn with piles of what household stuff they could save, until there was room for no more. As the fire swept toward the building, the tribe of refugees was driven west.

Unsung Heroes

Ignoring orders from U.S. Army officers to vacate the building, ten postal employees stayed behind and fought the blaze with canvas mail bags soaked in water from the hydraulic tank that ran the freight elevator. The fire leaped into Judge De Haven's chambers on the northeast side of the building, "turning the beautiful rooms into a roaring furnace." The glorious Redwood Room, with its 30,000 books, was destroyed. Bricks rained in and the smoke was suffocating. But these brave men fought on and saved the building. They nailed wet sacks to the doors, allowed the doors to burn until charred. They smothered the fire inside the building. Outside, it swept past on Stevenson Street, consuming everything in its path. Three days later, the U.S. Courthouse and Post Office "was the only sign of life in a field of darkness. It still stood in the midst of a ruined waste." Much of the damage to the building actually occurred six days after the quake, when a dynamiting crew blew up what was left of the Odd Fellows Building across the street. The blast shattered all the courthouse windows, shook down marble cornices and mosaics, tore doors from their hinges and blew the United States Attorney's weighty law books out the window. But no matter, the building stood. It served as a symbol of strength and hope for San Franciscans in the days and weeks after the disaster, as well as the city's center of communication and banking. Two days after the quake mail was being delivered again.

Courtroom Dramas

Over the decades, a good deal of drama was played out in the sumptuous San Francisco courtrooms. The most dramatic scene took place during the famous Hindu Conspiracy Trial of World War I. The government had charged Franz Bopp, the German consul general in San Francisco, and 44 others with conspiring to smuggle arms to India to overthrow British rule. All but one was convicted. On April 23, 1918, in Courtroom One, Ram Singh, a defendant turned government witness, shot and killed another defendant, Indian revolutionary Ram Chandra. U.S. Marshal James P. Holohan drew his revolver and killed Ram Singh with a single bullet through the heart. One of Singh's stray bullets hit the glass-mosaic inlay on the front of the judge's bench; the bullet hole is still there today, a chipped piece of history left untouched. Over the next decade, the federal bureaucracy expanded greatly in San Francisco. The Seventh and Mission building not only housed the post office and the district and appellate courts, whose case loads grew heavier by the year, but also the local offices of the Justice, Naturalization and other departments. By the late 1920s, the building had become so crowded that an expansion was inevitable.

In Comes Judge Richard Chambers

By then the splendid turn-of-the-century building had fallen on hard times, like many of the people who lived in the run-down neighborhood. It was the victim of neglect and changing tastes. The exterior was chipped and soiled. Inside, original bare-bulbed brass and bronze chandeliers were considered old-fashioned and replaced with modern light fixtures. Marble mosaics and gilded ornamentation on the hallway ceilings were covered with drab green paint. Vintage furniture was stashed in the basement or sold off as junk. Then along came Judge Richard Chambers, a Tucson lawyer who was named to the Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit in 1959.

As the junior member of the court, Chambers was named custodian of the court. Falling in love with the building, he took the job to heart. Appalled by the building's increasingly shabby condition, he became passionately committed to restoring it to its former beauty. He rescued furniture from the basement and began scavenging furniture and light and plumbing fixtures from historic federal buildings around the country that were about to be demolished. Learning that the old court-house in Chicago was being torn down, Chambers made some calls and within a few days three moving vans loaded with light fixtures, furniture, clocks and pull-chain toilets were on their way to San Francisco. A headline in the Chicago Tribune read, "San Francisco Judge Snatches Priceless Furniture." The beautiful brass torch lamps that line the Great Hall were among the Chicago spoils. Chambers salvaged other furnishings from doomed federal buildings in Spokane, Key West, Carson City, and Cheyenne, where he got tables and chairs used during the famous Teapot Dome trial. Under Chambers' guidance, this architectural gem began to shine again. When plans were made to move all the courts to the new 20-story federal building on Golden Gate Avenue, Chambers was among those who insisted that the Circuit Court of Appeals remain in its historic home. Sadly, Judge Chambers died before the beautifully restored U.S. Court of Appeals Building reopened on October 17, 1996, exactly seven years after the Loma Prieta earthquake.

Damage from the 1989 Loma Prieta Earthquake

It was not as devastating as the 1906 quake, but the earthquake that shook San Francisco on October 17, 1989 wreaked havoc on the Bay Area, killing dozens of people. A stretch of freeway collapsed, as did a section of roadway on the Bay Bridge. Hundreds of buildings were damaged, including the courthouse, which suffered major structural damage. The hollow clay interior walls and some of the marble slabs attached to them were badly cracked. Marble columns were dislodged. There were cracks in the floors and in the exterior granite facade. The building was "red-tagged" as unsafe and closed. The Postal Service moved its operations to other branches and the Court of Appeals relocated to rented offices downtown.

Restoration

General Services Administration officials considered the option of tearing down the bulding and constructing a new one. But it was clear that that there was really no choice but to save this landmark beauty. The first step of the restoration project, begun in 1993, was to seismically retrofit the building to protect it from future earthquakes. The GSA decided to use an innovative "base isolation" system—architectural shock absorbers—to significantly reduce damage from future temblors. The system uses friction pendulum bearings. Inside each bearing there is a piece called an "articulated slider" that sits in a stainless steel bowl; when the earth moves, it slides up and down the bowl, causing the structure to lift up and sway like a pendulum. The building moves as a single unit. The courthouse is the largest structure in the United States to use this system of base isolators, and the first historic building to do so.

To strengthen the structure, more than 30 steel-reinforced concrete shear walls were built throughout the building. In order to install them and repair cracked interior walls, much of the marble paneling, decorative plaster and tile mosaics had to be removed. In the process, workmen put in all new electrical, plumbing and fire-safety systems and brought the building up to current handicapped-access codes. Contemporary craftsmen, working in the tradition of those turn-of-the-century Italian artisans, repaired and restored the interior finishes. All the wooden doors were removed and shipped to Portland, where wood workers refurbished them and restored chipped ornamentation with newly carved pieces made to look original. Large amounts of decorative plaster molding were either taken down or destroyed during the construction. The plasterers replaced whole sections of cornices and ceilings, making reverse molds from the pieces that remained intact, then replicating those details with new castings. Plaster work throughout the building was cleaned and painted. The exterior granite facades also got a major cleaning, and they sparkle.

A new atrium was constructed that is linked to the older structure. It is a luminous space whose elegantly modern design and materials—maple wood, glass and steel—speak of the late 20th century yet connect to the past in real and poetic ways. To link the atrium to the old building, granite walls were built around its perimeter. The steel spindles of the stairway railings echo the cages of the old postal windows lining the west wall; the library's white marble counters allude to those windows as well. Layers of history unfold as one moves from the old building to the center of the new. A web of steel beams running along the atrium roof connects the new space to the old, tying them together visually and structurally. These seams are covered with glass membrane skylights that let natural light pour into both the atrium and the adjoining historic spaces. For the first time the general public can see the beautiful courtyard facades.

Strengthened to withstand the force of nature and restored to its original splendor, this beautiful building stands as a testament to the people who built it. The American taxpayers at the end of the 19th century gave us a building worth saving. Those at the end of the 20th century have continued the legacy by preserving this architectural treasure for future generations.

References Cited 

ACS (Archaeological Consulting Services)
	1994	Historic Preservation Investigations for the Proposed Court of Appeals 
	Expansion Project; Mission Street, Jessie Street, and Stevenson Street, 
	City of San Francisco, County of San Francisco, California: The Archival 
	Research Program. ACS Technical Series No. 11, Contract Number 
	1443PX500093363. Copy on file at the Southeast Archeological Center, 
	National Park Service, Tallahassee, Florida.

Alvarez, Susan H.
	1993	Prehistoric Overview. In Tar Flat, Rincon Hill and the Shore of
	Mission Bay: Archaeological Research Design and Treatment Plan for
	SF-480 Terminal Separation Rebuild, Mary and Adrian Praetzellis 
	(eds.), pp. 13-23. Prepared for CALTRANS by the Anthropological Studies
	Center, Sonoma State University, Rohnert Park, California.

Cherny, Robert W.
	1986	San Francisco, 1865-1932 Politics, Power, and Development.
	University of California Press, Berkeley.

Farneth, Stephen J., and Bruce D. Judd
	1984	U.S. Court of Appeals and Post Office Seventh and Mission Streets,
	San Francisco, California, Historic Structure Report. Prepared for
	General Services Administration, San Francisco, California. Project
	No. RCA 72131B. Prepared by Architectural Resources Group, San
	Francisco, California.

Moratto, Michael J.
	1984	California Archaeology. Academic Press, Orlando, Florida.

Olmsted, Nancy
	1986	Vanished Waters: A History of San Francisco's Mission Bay. Mission Creek Conservancy, 
	San Francisco, California.

Resource Consultants
	1993	Historical Overview. In Tar Flat, Rincon Hill and the Shore of
	Mission Bay: Archaeological Research Design and Treatment Plan for
	SF-480 Terminal Separation Rebuild, Mary and Adrian Praetzellis 
	(eds.), pp. 25-64. Prepared for CALTRANS by the Anthropological Studies
	Center, Sonoma State University, Rohnert Park, California.

Roberts, Lois
	1994	Historic Overview. In Historic Preservation Investigations for the Proposed Court of Appeals 
	Expansion Project; Mission Street, Jessie Street, and Stevenson Street, 
	City of San Francisco, County of San Francisco, California: The Archival 
	Research Program. ACS Technical Series No. 11, Contract Number 
	1443PX500093363,  pp. 34-81. Copy on file at the Southeast Archeological Center, 
	National Park Service, Tallahassee, Florida.

Rudo, Mark Ogden
	1982	The Prehistory of San Francisco. Unpublished Master's thesis,
	Department of Anthropology, San Francisco State University. Ms. on
	file, S-6160, Northwest Information Center, Rohnert Park, California.

U.S. General Services Administration
	1997	United States Court of Appeals Building for the Ninth Circuit. General Services Administration, 
	Public Buildings Service, Washington, D.C.

 ACS (1994) Bibliography

Illustrations courtesy of the Bancroft Library, UC Berkeley:


Artwork by Louis Choris:

"Voyage pittoresque autour du monde, avec des portraits de sauvages d'Amerique, d'Asie, d'Afrique, 
et des iles du Grand ocean; des paysages, des vues maritimes, et plusieurs objets d'histoire naturelle; 
accompagne de descriptions par M. le Baron Cuvier, et M.A. de Chamisso, et d'observations sur les 
cranes humains par M. le Docteur Gall, Par M. Louis Choris, peintre." [Bancroft Library] 

1822 Lithographs from 1816 ink and paint drawing, Louis (Ludovik) Choris (Russian, b. Germany, 1795-1828). 
Images come from a book published after the Russian exploring ship Rurik had made its 1816-1817 voyage. 
Its mission was to explore the islands of the South Pacific and find a navigable passage to the Atlantic 
around the northern tip of Alaska. Led by Otto von Kotzbue, the ship's German captain, the Rurik carried 
four men as scientific observers, one being the young Russian-born artist Ludovik Choris. The ship 
spent the month of October 1816 in the bay of San Francisco, allowing Choris to record in ink and paint the people and land. 
The lithographs in this 1822 volume, made after Choris' works, give one of the 
earliest glimpses of life around San Francisco Bay.


Views of San Francisco:

[Bird's eye view of San Francisco] Drawn by George H. Goddard. Lith. Britton & Rey. 
Goddard, G. H.
CREATED/PUBLISHED: [n.p.] Snow & May, 1868.
NOTES: Perspective map not drawn to scale. 
REFERENCE: Library of Congress Panoramic maps (2nd ed.), 35 

View of San Francisco, formerly Yerba Buena, in 1846-7 before the discovery of gold. 
Bosqui Eng. & Print. Co.
CREATED/PUBLISHED: [San Francisco?] 1884.
NOTES: "Designed & copied from views taken at the time."  Indexed for points of interest. 
Includes signatures of J. D. Stevenson, Genl. M. G. Vallejo, George Hyde, and Capt. W. F. Swasey. 
REFERENCE: Library of Congress Panoramic maps (2nd ed.), 33.2 

The city of San Francisco. Birds eye view from the bay looking south-west. Sketched & drawn by C. R.
Parsons. Parsons, Charles R., 1821-1910.
CREATED/PUBLISHED: New York, Currier & Ives; B. McQuillan, agent for the Pacific Coast, San Francisco, c1878.
NOTES: Perspective map not drawn to scale. Indexed for points of interest. 
REFERENCE: Library of Congress Panoramic maps (2nd ed.), 37.1

Recommended Reading: 

Olmsted, Nancy
	1986	Vanished Waters: A History of San Francisco's Mission Bay. Mission Creek Conservancy, 
	San Francisco.

Margolin, Malcolm 
	1978	The Ohlone Way: Indian Life in the San Francisco-Monterey Bay Area. Berkeley: Heyday Books. 

Milliken, Randall
	1995	The Disintegration of Tribal Culture in the San Francisco Bay Area, 1769-1810.  Menlo Park: Ballena Press.

Morrato, Michael J.
	1984	California Archaeology. Academic Press, Orlando.

Praetzellis, Mary and Adrian Praetzellis (eds)
	1993	Tar Flat, Rincon Hill and the Shore of Mission Bay: Archaeological Research Design and 
	Treatment Plan for SF-480 Terminal Separation Rebuild. Anthropological Studies Center, 
	Sonoma State University, Rohnert Park, California.

U.S. General Services Administration
	1997	United States Court of Appeals Building for the Ninth Circuit. General Services Administration, 
	Public Buildings Service, Washington, D.C.

Additional Internet Sources:

An Overview of Ohlone Culture, an excerpt originally titled "Ethnographic Background," from a 1991 report entitled: "The Santa's Village Site CA-SC1-239." URL: http://www.cruzio.com/~sclibs/history/ohlone.html.

Vanished Waters of Southeastern San Francisco: Notes on Mission Bay and the Marshes and Creeks of the Potreros and the Bernal Rancho, by William Crittenden Sharpsteen, 1941. URL: http://www.sfmuseum.org/hist5/vanish.html.

American Local History Network: The History of San Francisco. URL: http://www.zpub.com/sf/history/.

Index to San Francisco History from the Museum of the City of San Francisco. URL: http://www.sfmuseum.org/hist1/subjects.html.