"I suppose the Spaniards must have had a name for this sightly hill,"
said the Bostonian, his eye tracing the rugged skyline across the bay,
along the Tamalpais Range on the north, and the San Antonio Hills on the
east.
"Yes, Anza christened it in 1776 when he climbed up here for a view
after selecting the sites for the Presidio and the Mission. He called it
La Loma Alta, and the High Hill it remained until the Americans put it
to commercial use in forty-nine. The little town on the edge of the cove
in the hollow of the hills was unconscious of a ship entering the harbor
until she rounded Clark's Point, the southeast corner of this hill, and
dropped anchor in full view--"
"Any relation to Champ?" he interrupted.
"No, Clark was a Mormon, although he afterward denied it, who had built
a wharf in the deep water along the precipitous bluff, where ships could
always disembark even when the ebb-tide uncovered mud-flats elsewhere
along the shore of the cove.
"The American miners and merchants, eager for the earliest news of the
approaching mails and merchandise, erected a signal station on the top
of Loma Alta, about where that flag-pole is. When a vessel was seen
entering the Golden Gate, the black arms of the semaphore on top of the
building were raised in varying positions indicating to the watching
town below, where every one knew the signals, whether it was a bark, a
brig, a steamer or other kind of craft. This was the first wireless
station on the coast.
"There comes a side-wheeler," I exclaimed, raising my arms upward in a
slanting position, as a big liner from Yokohama entered the channel.
"Now fancy every office and bank closed, every law-court adjourned,
every gaming table deserted; the shore black with people and long lines
forming from the post-office windows to await the anchoring of the
vessel, the landing of friends and freight, and the sorting of the mail
by Postmaster Geary."
My companion made a telescope of his two hands and examined the Nippon
Maru. "You are discharged for inefficiency," he said. "You are reporting
a side-wheeler for a screw-propeller."
"There is no signal in the code for such modern inventions," I retorted.
"I suppose the fog of your practical realism is too obscuring for you to
see that clipper just coming in," I continued, as a full-rigged ship
spread its filled sails against the glowing sky of the late afternoon.
"The lady is a bit sarcastic, Billy," he addressed the goat, "but we'll
examine it." Then peering through his telescoped hands again, "It's the
clipper ship Eclipse," he announced, "built especially for speed, in the
exigencies of the San Francisco trade, with long, narrow hull, and
carrying an extra amount of canvas. She has made the trip from New York
in three-quarters of the time required by any other kind of craft, and
demands, therefore, nearly double the price for freight." He looked at
me for approval.
"What a whetstone for the imagination the business sense is!" I
commented. "Perhaps if your grandfather owned shares in the Eclipse, you
will be able to see the second signal station erected the next year on
Point Lobos, just beyond the Fort. From there a vessel could be decried
many miles outside the Heads and the signal repeated by the station here
on Telegraph Hill, relieved the inhabitants of several more hours of
anxiety."
"Anxiety is a mild term if one couldn't hear for a whole month from the
girl who had his heart," he commented. "It's bad enough when she won't
write, even with a telegraph and railroad between." He was tracing some
characters in the ground at my feet, with a stick. "Thirty-four days," I
made out.
"If you've sufficiently recovered from the climb, shall we see how the
city looks from up here?" I asked.
For answer he sprang up and assisted me to my feet. We walked to the
opposite side of the park, where the city lay extended before us.
"Imagine a forest of masts here in the bay, about seven or eight
hundred; the water laying Montgomery Street beyond the Merchants'
Exchange--that yellow brick building with the little arched cupola; and
wharves running out from every street to reach the ships lying in deep
water, every one swarming with teams and men hurrying to and fro.
Connect them with piled walks over the water on the lines of Sansome and
Battery Streets and you have a picture of Yerba Buena Cove in
forty-nine. Heap up freight and baggage on the shore, erect thousands of
tents on the sand dunes around the edges of a town of shanties and
adobes climbing over the hills and you have our miner's metropolis," I
sketched for him.
"I see it," he said, shutting his eyes. "Now a wave of the magic wand
and the scene is changed." He opened them again.
"The magic wand is a steam-paddy, working day and night leveling off the
sand-hills and shoveling them into the bay. The wharves are converted
into streets and many good ships, whose crews having deserted for the
mines, being pulled up and used as storage ships, are caught by the
rising tide of sand and converted into foundations for buildings. Such
was the 'Niantic' at Clay and Sansome."
"Oh yes, the 'Niantic!"
"The third building on the site still retains the name."
"What was the case of assault that gave the belligerent name to Battery
Street?"
"It was a precaution against assault," I corrected. "Captain Montgomery
erected a fortification of five confiscated Spanish guns on the side of
this hill overlooking the harbor after he had taken possession of the
Mexican town. It was known as Fort Montgomery, or the Battery. It was on
the bluff just where Battery Street joins the Embarcadero down there,
for the hill came out to that point."
"Did the earthquake shake it down?" His question was tinged with
triumph.
I crushed him with a look. "The ships that came loaded with freight and
passengers took it away with them as ballast," I explained, "and of
recent years some contractors blasted it off and paved streets with it
until it was rescued from further demolition by some appreciative
landmark lovers of a women's club."
"What a fortunate interference! But the despoilers got a good slice of
it, didn't they? There wouldn't have been much of it left in a few
years."
"No more than there is of Rincon Hill, over there at the southern corner
of Yerba Buena Cove." I was considerably mollified by his appreciation.
"It was the best residence quarter of the fifties, but the 'unkindest
cut' of Second Street, which brought no good to anyone, not even its
commercial promoters, left it a place of the 'butt ends of streets,' as
Stevenson says, and inaccessible, square-edged, perpendicular lots whose
only value lies buried underneath them. I fear its scars can never be
remedied."
"You have several hills left," he consoled me as his eye traveled along
the broken western skyline. "What is their role in this historic drama?"
"The ridge running down the peninsula is the San Miguel Range, crowned
by Twin Peaks, with the Mission at its foot. Nob Hill, next, acquired
its name in the sixties, when the bonanza and railroad kings erected
their residences there. Before the fire"--I felt my color rising, but
there was no shade of change in my companion's expression--"the
mansions of the 'Big Four' of the Central Pacific--Huntington, Hopkins,
Stanford and Crocker--and the Comstock millionaires--Flood, Fair and
others--filled with magnificent works of craftsmen and artists, had
more than local fame."
"From this distance, with three of the largest buildings in the city,
the hill hardly seems to have fallen from its high estate," he observed.
"You are quite right. It still lives up to its name, for the Fairmont
Hotel and the Stanford Apartments, christened for two of its former
magnates, and the brown-stone Flood mansion, remodeled for the
Pacific-Union Club, are no whit less nobby than their predecessors."
"The next hill?" He turned his gaze to the houses perched on the top and
clinging part way down its steep sides.
"A little graveyard where the Russian gold-seekers were laid to rest
gave its name. It is now the home of the artists and the artistic."
"A city built on the water and the hills, and rebuilt on the ashes of
seven fires," he commented. "It is almost incomprehensible." After a
moment's pause: "How much of the city was burned by the last fire?"
I glanced sharply at him. There was no shade of irony in his tone and
his face showed only sincerity.
"All that you can see, from the fringe of wharves at the waterfront to
the top of the hills and down into the valley beyond, except these
houses here at our feet, saved by the Italians with wine-soaked
blankets, and a few on the heights of Russian Hill."
"It was colossal!" he exclaimed. "Think of it! a whole city wiped out."
I lowered my eyes to the goat nibbling beside us. "The courage and
energy that rebuilt it is herculean." His enthusiasm was cumulative.
"And rebuilt it in practically three years! No wonder you date all
things from the fire."
Billy flickered his tail and solemnly winked at me.
"It is getting late," I said, "but the sun is just setting. Shall we
watch it before we go?"
Without speaking, he followed me back to our first point of view. The
crimson ball was sinking into the sea, with its Midas touch turning the
water and sky to molten gold. The last rays gilded the cliffs on either
side of the entrance to the bay, and burnished the heads of the nodding
poppies at our feet. From the Presidio came the muffled boom of the
sunset gun.
"Could Frémont have chosen a better name?" exclaimed the man at my side.
"The Golden Gate it is, indeed!"
"It certainly is well named," I agreed, "for everyone can interpret its
meaning according to his mood and character. Some see only what Frémont
saw, an open door to commerce; to others it is the entrance to hoards of
gold, stowed away in hills and streams; to the poet it speaks of the
golden poppies that streak the hillsides, but I like to think of it as
did the Indians, who called it 'Yulupa,' the Sunset Strait."
Silently we watched the lights of the city come out, one by one, until
it seemed as if the heavens lay beneath us.
"I hoped when I left Boston that you would return with me," he said
gently, "but I can't ask you to leave this. I didn't understand then,
but now--"
The lights became blurred and the night seemed suddenly to have grown
cold.
"Of course, you couldn't be happy--"
The voice did not sound like his. I had been in a dream for two days. I
had thought he cared just as I did, but he couldn't, or he would realize
that nothing counted but--I bit my lips to keep from crying out.
"Boston is too cold for a girl with the warmth of California in her
heart."
Cold! Didn't he know that life with him would make an iceberg paradise?
Didn't he realize--? But, of course, he didn't care as I did! This was
only a subterfuge. I straightened proudly.
"I can't ask you to go back with me," he was saying, "but I can stay
here with you." His hand crept over mine. "Our business needs a manager
on this coast. Will you help me make a home in San Francisco, dear?"
Below, the lights of the city danced with happiness and a glad new song
rang in my heart.
Here ends 'The Lure of San Francisco. A Romance Amid Old Landmarks."
Written by Elizabeth Gray Potter and Mabel Thayer Gray and Illustrated
from Sketches in Charcoal by Audley B. Wells. Done into a book by Paul
Elder and Company at their Tomoye Press in San Francisco under the
supervision and care of H. A. Funke, in July, Nineteen Hundred and
Fifteen.