Commonwealth Network
| 1776 to 1859 |
| 1860 to 1879 |
| 1880 to 1897 |
| 1880 | New California State Consitution goes into effect.
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. Wool and jute mill owners fire 1200 Chinese workers. Police force increased to 400 men. 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. 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. 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. 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). 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:
Borax is discovered in Death Valley. The Public Library allows patrons to borrow books for the first time. 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.
Congress passes the Ten Year Exclusion Act against the Chinese. 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. Carpenters demand and get the eight hour day for Saturday only. 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.
Golden Gate Park Conservatory damaged by fire. Major gas explosion at the Palace Hotel. Carpenters, painters, metal roofers, bricklayers, and stair-builders form the Confederation of Building Trades. 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. 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.
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. 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. 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.
Coast Seamen's Union formed. 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. 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.
Ten thousand workers march to demonstrate Union solidarity. Joaquin Miller organizes the first Arbor Day. Trees are planted on Yerba Buena (Goat) Island. 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. Bancroft's History of California begins to appear. |
| 1887 | A cargo of powder aboard the schooner Parallel blows up below
Cliff House.
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. It snows. Congress grants Seal Rocks to the City. 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.
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. 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. Ferry explosion in San Pablo Bay. Incadescent lamps used for the first time at the Bijou Theater. |
| 1889 | The Union Iron Works launch the USS Oregon and the USS Olympia.
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.
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. 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. Little Pete begins to move in on horse-racing. |
San
Francisco Taphophilia
Social
Violence in San Francisco
San
Francisco Genealogy