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CALIFORNIA |
1864 |
By 1864, California's gold rush had ended. The rich surface and
river placers were largely exhausted; hydraulic mines were the chief
sources of gold for the next 20 years.
http://www.learncalifornia.org/doc.asp?id=118
It has been estimated that more than 300,000 people came to
California between the years 1848 and 1854. Many came and left in
a relatively short time; others stayed a while longer, and still others
remained permanently. The State's population at the time of the 1850
census was nearing 100,000 and, ten years later, the population reached
380,000. By 1880, California boasted a population of 560,247. By the
end of the 19th century, more than 1.2 million people called the Golden
State "home." So, while the rush to the gold fields may
have lasted fewer than twenty years, the influx of people continues
even today. |
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|
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San Francisco at the [Industrial and Fine Arts] Fair [California,
1864]
Creator/Contributor:
Jump, Edward (1832-1883), French, artist
Date:
c1864
Contributing Institution:
Bancroft Library.
More information about this image
http://www.calisphere.universityofcalifornia.edu/ |
|
|
1863 |
Construction of the Central Pacific Railroad begins.
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Railroad and ferry connection with Oakland inaugarated.
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The first Cliff House opens.
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California Governor Leland Stanford calls for discouraging Chinese
immigration by every legitimate means. Stanford's sincerity comes
into question when it is revealed that his railroad is importing
thousands of Chinese laborers to build the Central Pacific route
through the Sierra Nevada.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The Russian Fleet visits the City, both to express
the Czar's support for the Union cause and to allow the fleet to
dock in an ice-free port.
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San Francisco and San Jose railroad begins service.
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Telegraph cable is stretched across the Golden Gate.
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Blacks allowed to testify against whites in California courts.
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"Mark Twain" makes his first appearance in western newspapers.
|
1864 |
San Francisco and San Jose Railroad completed.
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Thomas Starr King dies.
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Vessels entering the port of San Francisco are prohibited from passing
to the north of Alcatraz. Violators are warned that they will be
fired upon.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
State legislation prohibits Sunday performances.
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A gale destroys 300 feet of Meigg's Wharf.
|
1865 |
California ratifies the 13th Amendment, abolishing
slavery.
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Fire alarm and police telegraph system established.
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Earthquake.
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Odd Fellows dedicate a cemetery on Point Lobos Road.
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The Pacific Museum of Anatomy and Science, a thinly disguised peep
show, acquires "Joaquin Murietta's" head. It remains on
display there for 41 years.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Southern Pacific Railroad is founded.
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Mark Twain begins residence in San Francisco.
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A competitive race between three volunteer fire
companies turns to violence as members of each company try to prevent
the others from arriving first to a fire. Several dozen men suffer
gunshots, bruises, wounds, and broken bones. The incident prompts
the State Legislature to authorize paid fire departments.
|
1866 |
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Heyday of Miss Piggot and Mother Bronson, a pair
of boarding house Shanghai queens and tavern keepers.
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A nitroglycerine explosion wrecks the Wells Fargo and Company Express
office.
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The Union State Central Committee meets in San Francisco, adopting
strong resolutions promoting equal rights for all men without reference
to color.
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|
1867 |
The Schah Jehan runs onto the rocks of the bay and is lost. Her
crew is saved.
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Angry laborers drive off Chinese working on excavating a Townsend
Street lot and at the Tubbs and Company rope works. Many Chinese
homes are burned. In subsequent days, anti-coolie clubs are formed.
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The Pacific Mail steamship Colorado returns from her maiden voyage
to China and Japan.
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First steamer service to Alaska.
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Blasting of Telegraph Hill to procure rock for a seawall begins.
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A terrific gale soaks and wrecks most of the state.
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Sam's Grill opens at the California Market.
|
1868 |
The H.L. Rutgers is wrecked
off Point Bonita.
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A storm sinks the sloop John Stillson with its 80 ton cargo of wheat
while berthed at San Francisco.
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The British bark Oliver Cutts becomes another victim of the year's
inclement weather.
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The British ship Viscota is wrecked off Point Lobos.
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Four major earthquakes shake the city. The last of these will be
the largest tremor in San Francisco history until 1906.
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A gang of hoodlums drag a Chinese crab catcher beneath
a wharf where they rob him, beat him with a hickory club, branded
him in several places with a hot iron, and then slit his ears and
tongue.
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The Shanghai Chicken and his partner Johnny Nyland go on a shooting
and knifing spree. Several men are wounded, but none seriously.
The spree is ended when Billy Maitland enters Billy Lewis's saloon
and throws Nyland out. When the Shanghai Chicken aims at pistol
at Maitland, the bouncer cuts off the Chicken's hand and throws
him out onto the street. The Chicken replaces his hand with a metal
hook.
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Hoodlum leader James or "Butt" Riley arrives in the city
and becomes one of the Barbary Coast's legendary figures. The handsome
Riley is popular with waiter girls and prostitutes, to whom he sells
nude pictures.
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The Young Men's Christian Association is constructed.
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Mark Twain bids San Francisco farewell. His job as the "Town
Crier" is filled by a bitter, young Civil War Veteran named
Ambrose Bierce.
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San Franciscans welcome the staff of the Chinese
Embassy with a grand banquet and a tour of the city's fortifications.
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Construction crews use several tons of powder to drill a tunnel
at Lime Point.
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A heavy fog shrouds much of the state in September.
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A four hour long meteor shower attracts the attention of skywatchers
mid-November.
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Smallpox cases on the rise. 350 fatal cases are reported this year.
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The Big Four (Leland Stanford, Collis Huntington, Mark Hopkins,
and Charles Crocker) gains controlling interest in the Oakland Waterfront
Company. This gives them control over the main access routes into
the San Francisco Bay.
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The Burlingame Treaty establishes the right of Chinese
to free immigration.
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Hell's Kitchen and Dance Hall opens its doors. It celebrates its
first Christmas with a free-for-all fight in which several men are
injured. |
1869 |
The completion of the transcontinental railroad
is celebrated with the driving (and immediate retrieval) of several
golden spikes at Promontory Point, Utah. First westbound train arrives
at Alameda in September.
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Frederick Marriot demonstrates his dirigible, Avitor Hermes Jr.
at Shell Mound Park in the East Bay.
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A train from Boston brings the first transcontinental shipment,
consisting of boots and shoes. A few days later, another train heads
east with a shipment of tea bound for Chicago.
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First shipment of fresh oysters from Baltimore arrives
in October.
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The 1864 legislation prohibiting Sunday theatrical performances
is repealed, giving rise to a new era of spectacle.
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The Shanghai Chicken serves a year in jail for larceny.
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An expose by The Call compels authorities to prohibit the employment
of women in melodeons, music halls, and concert saloons. No effort
is made to enforce the ordinance.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Emperor Norton commands that bridges be built spanning San Francisco
Bay. The bridges are ordered to be built from Oakland to Goat Island
and thence to Tiburon and out to the Farallones.
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Bret Harte's "The Outcasts of Poker Flat"
|
1870 |
The anti-Chinese Industrial
Reformers organize.
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Golden Gate Park is established by state and municipal legislation.
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First Federal Civil Rights Act.
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Bret Harte's The Luck of Roaring Camp and Other
Sketches
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Rivalry between Chinese cigar makers explodes into an open fight
on Battery Street.
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A city ordinance prohibits the carrying of baskets attached to poles
laid across the shoulders.
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The Board of Supervisors prohibits the rental of
sleeping rooms which contain less than 500 cubic feet of air per
person.
|
1871 |
The California Women's Suffrage Society meets
for the first time.
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A huge flock of birds darkens the skies over the
west side of the City.
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An evening school for Chinese is denied funds. It becomes impossible
for Chinese San Franciscans to obtain an education for the next
fourteen years.
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The Board of Supervisors adopts William Hammond Hall's design for
Golden Gate Park.
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The Shanghai Chicken shoots a German sailor. When
he is discovered aboard the steamer Wilson G. Hunt by Patrolman
John Coulter, he is wearing his victim's cap. Devine predicts that
he will be hung for the murder. He is.
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Los Angeles mobs attack Chinese laborers, killing twenty.
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San Francisco Art Institute established.
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Blossom Rock is removed as a hazard to navigation.
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John Jordan shoots hoodlum James Riley in the chest. Riley survives,
but his reputation and health suffers as a result.
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Construction begins on a new City Hall. |
1872 |
Committee of One Hundred organized
to oppose giving Goat Island to the railroads.
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Police force increased to 150 patrolmen.
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A pair of miners trick banker William Ralston into
investing in a nonexistent diamond mine. The Great Diamond Hoax
contributes to Ralston's ruin.
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Modoc War begins.
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The Bohemian Club is founded by a pack of young artists and writers.
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Mark Twain, Roughing It.
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Streetlamps appear.
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Hercules Powder Works blows up.
|
1873 |
First post cards appear in the City. The Emperor
Norton becomes a popular subject.
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The Chinese Six Companies wires Hong Kong requesting
that emigration to San Francisco be stopped.
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Andrew Hallidie runs the first cable car up Clay Street.
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The Presbyterians organize the Oriental Board, which
they dedicate to helping Chinese women enslaved in the bagnios.
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The state legislature once again outlaws gambling, but the casinos
continue to operate behind closed doors.
|
1874 |
Railway conductors and drivers on the Bay View
and Potrero Railroad strike.
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Chronicle publisher Gustavus de Young exchanges shots with F.R.
Fitzgerald of the Sun.
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A huge mass meeting is convened to denounce the
Chinese. The assembly calls for the immediate ejection of the Chinese
from California. The Chinese Six Companies petitions President Grant,
declaring their loyalty to the United States and their many positive
contributions to the American economy.
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Professor Allen takes several citizens for balloon rides over Woodward's
Gardens.
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The French Mail balloon Le Secours arrives, commanded by Captain
Barbiere.
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The balloon America narrowly escapes destruction after a miscalculation
during its descent from an altitude of 3000 feet.
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Fire on Alcatraz.
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The new U.S. Mint opens in the South of Market.
* Grampy said their house was across from the US Mint
|
1875 |
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Heyday of the melodeons. Artistes of this time include the Galloping
Cow, her sister the Dancing Heifer, the Roaring Gimlet, the Waddling
Duck, Lady Jane Grey, and the Little Lost Chicken.
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The Northern Pacific Coast Railroad, from San Francisco to Tomales,
starts its service via Sausalito.
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Catholics meet to protest the expulsion of the Sisters
of Charity from Mexico.
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Bank of California magnate William Ralston accidentally drowns or
commits suicide after financial opponents force a rush on his bank.
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Low Sing, a member of the Suey Sing tong, is murdered while holding
the hands of his lover, the crib courtesan Kum Ho. Ming Long of
the Kwong Dock tong and noted assassin kills Low Sing because he
considers Kum Ho to be his girl. Low Sing lives long enough to identify
his killer. The Suey Sing declare war on the Kwong Dock. Ming Long
is hunted by the Suey Sing, but manages to escape home to China.
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The Six Companies estimates that there are 75,000 Chinese living
in California. Most of these are males of working age.
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The Three Lively Fleas are an erotic attraction
at Madame Bertha's Sacramento Street parlor house.
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Toby Rosenthal's painting Elaine is displayed at the galleries of
Snow and May and immediately proclaimed a masterpiece.
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The Pacific Stock Exchange opens.
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Native Sons of the Golden West organize.
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Actress Lotta Crabtree bestows a cast-iron monstrocity, thereafter
known as Lotta's Fountain, on the people of San Francisco.
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Miser James Lick turns philanthropist with a donation of a Market
Street lot to the California Academy of Sciences.
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The Palace Hotel opens. |
1876 |
The Chinese Six Companies petitions the Board of Supervisors for
protection from the tongs.
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The State of California begins mandatory licensing of doctors.
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City jailers enforce a short hair policy by cutting off the queue
of a Chinese convict.
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The Board of Supervisors makes another token effort to bar women
from working in concert saloons.
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Jesuit scientist Father Joseph M. Neri demonstrates the electric
light.
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James Riley is convicted of house-breaking and sentenced
to fifteen years in San Quentin.
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A mysterious cigar-shaped craft is sighted over the City, shining
its search lights on the deserted streets. Among the witnesses is
Adolph Sutro.
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Jeanne Bonnet, a cross-dresser known as the Little Frog Catcher,
is found dead with a bullet in her heart. She has been leading a
criminal gang of escaped brothel girls who refuse to sell their
bodies, have nothing to do with men, and who make their living through
shop-living and other petty thievery. Police suspect that Bonnet
has been killed by the pimps whose girls she has taken.
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Society for Prevention of Cruelty to Children founded.
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The Southern Pacific links San Francisco and Los Angeles by rail.
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Charles de Young is assaulted by John Duane.
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Fire at the Chinese Theater, Jackson Street.
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Diptheria epidemic in latter part of the year. (Children
usually represent a large majority of the cases and fatalities)
|
1877 |
Anti-coolie convention convenes.
Denis Kearney later leads the "sandlot riots" against
the City's Chinese. The year is filled with violence against the
Chinese and those who would speak in their defense. William T. Coleman
organizes a "pick-handle brigade to defend the Chinese from
the Sandlotters. For this, his house is attacked. Kearney finally
abandons his violent campaign and organizes the Workingmen's Party
of California.
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State prison officials complain that Chinese labor, hiring out for
25 cents or less a day, is unfair competition with convict labor
renting for 50 cents a day.
|
1878 |
Happy Jack Harrington, proprietor
of the Opera Comique, comes under the influence of the Praying Band
while drunk. He forsakes his business for the Bible and a new restaurant.
In a few weeks, however, he decides to return to his evil ways and
opens a new saloon.
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Five hundred unemployed men march on City Hall and demand that the
mayor give them work.
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The Workingmen's Party holds its first state convention.
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The Sutro Railroad to Land's End opens.
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A U.S. District Court rules that Chinese are not
eligible for citizenship.
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Mark Hopkins dies.
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The Galloping Cow saves enough money to open her own saloon. She
makes sure that it is understood that she wants no bulls by her
strength of character and forearm.
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First San Francisco telephone book issued by the American Speaking
Telephone Company.
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David Douty Colton, a late-coming partner to the
Southern Pacific Octupus (the half in the Big Four and A Half),
arrives home in a state of total collapse. He dies two days later,
at the age of 47. Officially the cause of death is a fall from a
horse on his ranch, but persistant rumors crop up that Colton has
been stabbed to death.
|
1879 |
Collision of the ferryboats Alameda and El
Capitan in dense fog.
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Jewish author's Salmi Morse's play The Passion,
directed by David Belasco and starring James O'Neill as Christ,
opens several days ahead of schedule to avoid censorship by municipal
authorities. The production closes within a week after playgoers
take to weeping and kneeling during performances.
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The Chronicle stirs concern about the cancan. The Board of Supervisors
outlaws its performance. Mabel Santley and her Rentz Troupe perform
the dance in spite of the ban at the Standard Theater. Chronicle
journalist Charles Warren Stoddard reports Ms. Santley's "immodest
and indecent" terpsichordean exercise to the police. Santley
is arrested, tried, convicted, and fined two hundred dollars. The
cancan continues to be performed.
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The State Constitution, ratified by voters in the spring, contains
many anti-Chinese provisions.
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Workingmen's Party nominates candidates for state and national legislative
office.
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San Francisco Public Library opens.
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U.S. Grant visits the City and is entertained at the home of Comstock
millionaire James Flood.
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Charles de Young shoots Workingmen's Party mayoral candidate Isaac
Kalloch, thus ensuring Kalloch's election that fall.
|
1880 |
New California State Consitution goes into
effect.
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Emperor Norton dies on a Chinatown street corner.
His estate consists of a two and a half dollar gold piece, three
silver dollars, an 1828 franc piece, and 98,200 shares in a worthless
gold mine. The entire city turns out for his funeral.
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Wool and jute mill owners fire 1200 Chinese workers.
???
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Police force increased to 400 men.
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The city is treated to daily parades by Communists until other citizens
serve notice that this will not be tolerated. The Citizens Protective
Union of San Francisco is organized to protect the city from the
Communist menace.
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Denis Kearney is arrested on charges of using incendiary
language. He is given a six month sentence, but the State Supreme
Court orders him released.
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Isaac Milton Kalloch, son of Mayor Kalloch, hunts Charles de Young
down in the publisher's office and kills him. He is later acquitted
on grounds of self defense.
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Mussel Slough Tragedy. The Southern Pacific Railroad has invited
settlers to farm certain disputed properties in Tulare County, telling
them that they could buy it later at prices starting at $2.50 an
acre. When the railroad acquires title, it offers to sell the land
to any buyer at prices ranging between $17 and $40 an acre. Some
of the original settlers organize a Grand Settlers League which
not only refuses to buy the land upon which they are now legally
squatting, but also attempts to prevent others from buying it. During
an intense encounter with the U.S. Marshal, a horse rears, shooting
starts, and when the dust clears, one would-be purchaser and four
settlers lay dead. Two more settlers die of their wounds, five are
sentenced to prison, many of the rest give up their homes, and a
few accept the SP's terms. Frank Norris later makes this a key scene
in his novel The Octopus (1901).
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John Sutter dies in Washington. He has been spending the last several
years petitioning the Government for redress of his losses due to
the Gold Rush. Harper's Weekly memorializes him thusly:
His claim to rememberance proved to be his greatest calamity, and
he died, it is said, from the effect of his efforts and anxiety
in importuning Congress to vote him a national indemnity because
of the misfortunes he had suffered through the very discovery which
has done so much toward enriching the country of his adoption.
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Borax is discovered in Death Valley.
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The Public Library allows patrons to borrow books for the first
time.
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Seamen's Protective Union formed. |
1881 |
U.S. Quarantine Station authorized for Angel Island,
making it the Ellis Island of the West Coast, where Asian immigrants
must wait for clearance to enter the United States. |
1882 |
Oscar Wilde visits the City.
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Congress passes the Ten Year Exclusion Act against
the Chinese.
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John Dolbeer invents the "donkey engine", a portable steam
engine which allows lumberjacks to hoist logs in the forest at a speed
comparable to that of the saws in the mills.
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Carpenters demand and get the eight hour day for Saturday
only.
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Fort Point renamed Fort Winfield Scott.
|
1883 |
"Black Bart", a gentleman bandit who has
been robbing Wells Fargo stages throughout northern California, turns
out to be respectable bank clerk Charles Bolton.
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Golden Gate Park Conservatory damaged by fire.
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Major gas explosion at the Palace Hotel.
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Sixty-five year old Senator William Sharon is arrested on charges
of adultery after Sarah Althea Hill produces a contract which she
alledges proves that they are married. The other woman is Gertie Dietz,
who has borne Sharon a child.
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Merchants' and Manufacturers' Association formed.
|
|
1884 A stray bear cub is found in the middle of
the city and turned over to the Cooper Medical College.
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Adolph Spreckels shoots Chronicle editor Michael de Young after de
Young defames the Spreckels family. De Young survives to give the
city the de Young Museum in Golden Gate Park. Adolph Spreckels is
found insane and goes on to give the City the rival Palace of the
Legion of Honor in Lincoln Park.
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Sarah Althea Hill is granted a divorce from Senator William Sharon
by a state court which awards her a $2,500 alimony. She marries her
lawyer, Nathan Terry, the man who assassinated Senator David Broderick.
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D.F. Riehl swims out from the Cliff House to Seal
Rocks and back.
|
1885 |
Senator William Sharon dies. His litigation with
Sara Althea Hill has not yet been fully resolved. The State Supreme
Court has upheld the divorce ruling. A ruling in federal court holds,
however, that the marriage documents are forgeries. Sharon has been
dead one month.
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A special city committee finds 15,180 sleeping bunks in Chinatown.
Most of these are shared by more than one person. The committee also
finds twenty six opium dens with 320 bunks open to the general public.
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The State Supreme Court rules that any Chinese child born and continuously
residing in the City is entitled to an education. |
1886 |
Plasterers, plumbers, gas fitters,
painters and members of the Laborers Protective Benevolent Association
(hodcarriers) form the Building Trades Council.
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Ten thousand workers march to demonstrate Union solidarity.
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Joaquin Miller organizes the first Arbor Day. Trees
are planted on Yerba Buena (Goat) Island.
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The Call identifies the area bounded by Broadway, Kearney, and Montgomery
Streets as The Devil's Acre, "the resort and abiding place of
the worst criminals in town."
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
David Colton's widow loses her lawsuit against Stanford, Huntington
and Crocker, but succeeds in proving false their claim that Colton
defrauded the company.
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Bancroft's History of California begins to appear. |
1887 |
A cargo of powder aboard the schooner
Parallel blows up below Cliff House.
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The City prohibits the selling of alcohol in theaters, forcing establishments
like the Bella Union to eventually close when it is actually enforced.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Thomas S. Baldwin makes a record-breaking parachute
jump from a balloon.
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It snows.
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Congress grants Seal Rocks to the City.
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Sarah Bernhardt appears at the Baldwin Theater.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The Wright Act, guaranteeing the rights of farmers to create irrigation
distrcts that can divert river water to dry lands for flood control
and water conservation purposes, is passed by the State Legislature.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Little Pete, the leader of the Sum Yop tong, is sentenced
to five years in San Quentin after he attempts to bribe the jurors,
the District attorney, and anyone else involved in the prosecution
of one of his hit men. |
1888 |
E.L. Thayer, Casey at the Bat.
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The U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upholds the federal
ruling against Sarah Althea Hill Terry. The Terrys refuse to produce
the marriage documents for the appeals court, sealing the fate of
their lawsuit.
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Prices for Chinese slavegirls rise after Congress makes Chinese female
immigration illegal. Another law prohibits the reentry of any Chinese
laborer who has left the country for any reason.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Charles Crocker dies in New York.
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Ferry explosion in San Pablo Bay.
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Incadescent lamps used for the first time at the Bijou Theater. |
|
1889 The Union Iron Works launch the USS Oregon
and the USS Olympia.
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A new special investigating committee estimates that
there are 45,000 Chinese in San Francisco, one third of whom are women
and children. Of these, 5000 work as domestics and cooks; 4000 make
cigars; 5000 more make men and womens clothing; and 2000 work in laundries.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
First jukebox installed at the Palais Royale Saloon. The contraption
is nothing more than a coin-operated Edison wax cylinder machine with
four listening tubes.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
James Flood dies in Germany. |
|
1890 The Comstock Silver Mines close.
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Liquor consumption reaches its all time high. The City has licensed
3,117 establishments that sell beer, whisky, or other intoxicants.
There is one such saloon for every ninety-six residents. Asbury later
estimates that there are also at least 2,000 blind pigs (speakeasies)
operating without licenses. San Franciscans spend an estimated $9,124,195
at the legal bars alone.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
David S. Terry is shot and killed by U.S. Marshall David Neagle after
Terry strikes U.S. Supreme Court Justice Stephen J. Field. Field has
earned Terry's wrath by ruling that documents giving Terry's wife
a share of the estate of the late Senator William Sharon are fraudulent.
Terry and his wife, Sarah Althea Hill Terry, are enroute to San Francisco
for sentencing in a contempt of court case before Judge Field. The
Supreme Court makes a landmark ruling holding that federal officials
are immune to state prosecution for acts performed in the line of
duty.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The Sailors' Union of the Pacific unites the Coast
Seamen's and Steamshipman's unions.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The Police Department begins to use signal boxes. |
|
1891 Stanford University founded.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The Salvation Army is organized in the City.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Mary Hopkins dies. She disinherits her adopted son
Timothy who opposed her marriage to Edward T. Searles, a decorator
twenty-two years her junior. Timothy Hopkins contests the will and
succeeds in recovering part of the estate for himself. |
1892 |
John Muir founds the Sierra Club.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Sarah Althea Hill Terry's hallucinations and bizarre behavior lead
Mary Pleasant, who has been looking after her, to have her brought
before a court for commitment proceedings. Judge Walter H. Levy, who
had served as one of Hill's attorneys in her suits against William
Sharon's estate, orders her sent to the Stockton State Hospital for
the Insane, where she dies forty-five years later.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
James J. Corbett becomes the world boxing champion.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Stanford wins the first "Big Game", 14 to Cal's 10.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Angel Islands U.S. Quarantine Station opens.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The Exclusion Act is extended for ten years.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Ambrose Bierce, Tales of Soldiers and Civilians |
1893 |
The City begins preparations for
the 1894 Midwinter Fair.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Ambrose Bierce, Can Such Things Be?
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Edward Searles donates the Hopkins Mansion to the San Francisco Art
Institute.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Michael Stein, brother of Gertrude, engineers the consolidation of
street railways into the Market Street Railway Company. Stein acts
as its vice president and superintendent of the division.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
San Francisco-born Stephen M. White becomes the first native Senator
from California.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Leland Stanford dies suddenly. His widow successfully
fights off attempts by Collis P. Huntington to close Stanford University.
|
1894 |
The Midwinter Fair opens in Golden
Gate Park in January. It closes on July 4.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Adolph Sutro's Cliff House burns down.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Members of the San Francisco contingent of Coxey's Army are harassed
by Oakland police.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
James G. Fair, the city's largest single taxpayer,
dies. |
1895 |
Gelette Burgess's "Purple Cow" makes
its first appearance in The Lark.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Big Bertha takes control of the Bella Union. When she can't sell liquor,
she shuts the establishment down for good and leaves the Barbary Coast.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Charley Hung and Dah Pa Tsin maintain a Church Alley pen holding one
hundred girls under the age of fourteen until they mature for the
purposes of prostitution.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Donaldina Cameron begins her work at the Presbyterian
Rescue Mission on Sacramento Street. She takes especial pains to free
the Chinatown bagnio slaves.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The mutilated body of Minnie Williams is found in the library of the
Emanuel Baptist Church. Her dress has been rammed so violently down
her throat that the medical examiner has trouble pulling it out. A
further search of the church by police uncovers the badly decomposed
body of Blanche Lamont, another highly religious girl, in the belfry.
Theodore Durrant, a young man known for his piety, is arrested for
the murders. Friends and acquaintances don't want to believe his guilt
until Annie Welming steps forward and reveals that Durrant had tried
to rape her. She fled the Church and so survived. Durrant is sentenced
to hang. His case remains on appeal. |
1896 |
The third Cliff House and Sutro Baths open.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Building Trades Council announces the closed shop:
no union member shall work on jobs with men without union working
cards.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The Velodrome opens.
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Newspaper publisher William Randolph Hearst sends Ambrose Bierce to
Washington to fight Collis P. Huntington's machinations on the part
of the Southern Pacific Railroad.
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Little Pete begins to move in on horse-racing. |
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The whole period |
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