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| San Francisco Examiner, 22-November-1924 |
"Rediscovering San Francisco" was a series of articles about the old days in San Francisco. Idwal Jones was the writer. John White Geary was San Francisco's last alcalde and first mayor. Cleopatra's Needle is an ancient Egyptian obelisk that has stood in New York's Central Park since 1881.
When the Plaza Was the City's Heart
This is the 2nd of a series of articles devoted to rediscovering San Francisco. Others will follow.
The roads that led to Rome never brought together stranger crowds than were wont to fill Portsmouth Square in the early '50s. San Francisco had already eclipsed Monterey as a port of call and trade, and the strangers that milled in the Plaza to stare at the sights and each other put one in mind of the woodcuts in the old geographies.
The town in 1852 had 7,000 Chinese. Grandiose mandarings strutted in the Square, agitating their fans and giving their caged birds an airing. Tattooed Maoris, all giants, strode along, wrapped in feathered cloaks. Russians in sables, coal-black and bearded Abyssinians; negroes in gay-colored jackets; Turks, Malays, Japanese and Kanakas were there in profusion. Dons from Castile, very pompous, tendered themselves hither.
Americans, largely from New England and Missouri, lean, lantern-jawed fellows who shunned the use of the razor as an effeminancy, made the Square their meeting place. Here it was that events of public importance came off.
Overlooking it, at the corner of Clay and Grant avenue, Jacob P. Leese, a trader, opened his home with great eclat on the Fourth of July, 1836. It was the first house built in this city, then called Yerba Buena.
A United States sloop-of-war, the Portsmouth, dropped anchor at the beach, July 8, 1846. Captain Montgomery ran up the American flag on a pole in the Square and the sloop boomed a salute. The road facing the beach was then named Montgomery street.
Another great day was in February, 1847, when the inhabitants made holiday over the rechristening of San Francisco, hitherto yclept Yerba Buena. There was sorrow and dismay over where Benicia now stands, for that thriving settlement had to change its name, as a consequence, from Francisca. Benicia hated to knuckle down to San Francisco, whose citizens felt Benicia would be a great rival in the future. In retrospect their fears seem unfounded.
Now called Portsmouth Square, after the first historic sloop, the plaza became more and more the center of life. At the southwest corner the first schoolhouse was built in 1847. Thomas Douglas, a Yankee, was the first teacher. Young San Francisco was rebellious, and he had to maintain discipline with the aid of a rawhide thong. Bearded men stuck their heads through the windows to absorb scraps of learning.
Every third building facing the Square was a gambling hell. On the Kearny street side near where the Hall of Justice now stands, was the Parker House. In 1849 gamblers rented the whole second floor for $60,000 a year.
Adjoining the Garret House, at the upper side, was the post office. When the mail came, rows of men, half a mile long, stood in line to get letters. Some expected no letters at all, but stood in line, nevertheless, and when near the window sold their places to the impatient at very nice sums. Not a few made a living this way. It was no worse than modern theater-ticket speculation.
Vaqueros, with bells, spurs and serapes, used to show off in the crowd by cavorting on their horses. Carts went through at a gallop. In the center of the Square were sweetmeat and foodstuff booths, tethering posts and parked wagons and horses. Labies of an ancient profession rode through, smartly dressed in the height of London style, to the applause of the multitude.
The people of Portland, Oregon, made us the gift in 1850 of a flagpole, 110 feet long, and this was set up with rejoicing, Col. J. W. Geary, the mayor, made an eloquent speech of acceptance. This flagpole was so fine a sight, with the banner atop, that folk rode all the way from Monterey to see it. So straight and flawless a pole had never been seen. It was two feet taller than Cleopatra's Needle, and justly the object of civic pride and affection.
The China Boys got public presents on August 28, 1850, in the Square. Tracts, flags, books and cards of a religious nature, printed in Chinese characters, were bestowed upon them by the mayor's committee. Some of these, cherished as mementoes of their ancestors, are still treasured by inhabitants of modern-day Chinatown.
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