Grab Bag #40

Monday, September 16th, was Mexican Independence Day. Commemorating the anniversary of Miguel Hidalgo y Costilla’s call to rise up against Spain in 1810, it does not get the same attention or beer-company advertising budgets as Cinco de Mayo (which celebrates a specific battle victory).

September 16th used to be a bigger deal among San Francisco’s Mexican community, especially in the mid 1860s. Monarchists in Mexico had conspired with France, Austria, and Belgium to force the Mexican Republic out of power and install an Austrian archduke as emperor.

The United States survived its civil war and President Benito Juarez was fighting to regain his country. Thus, in San Francisco in 1865, there was a lot of fervor for independence and republicanism in the air. 

That year, Dashaway Hall on Post Street was gussied up to commemorate the 55th Mexican Independence Day. There were evergreen garlands, flowers, and painted shields emblazoned with names of Mexican Republican generals of the past and present.

Juarez had his portrait up at one end of the hall, while at the other end hung flags of Western Hemisphere republics, including the United States. There were speeches, a band playing patriotic tunes, and a big ball to finish the evening.

The Daily Alta was very impressed with the whole affair, its reporter obviously distracted by a personal fascination. His article finished with:

“One young Senorita, dressed in white, with red and blue sash, was conspicuous for the delicate grace of her face and figure, and to our mind, came nearer the ideal of perfect beauty than we have ever before seen in a San Francisco ball-room. The dancing was kept up with spirit until a late hour of the night.”

Poor Alesandro Ocamba, however, did not have a good day. It had been a recent tradition to climb to the peak of the Clay Street hill (just west of Jones Street on what we call Nob Hill now) and offer a 21-gun salute at both dawn and dusk of Independence Day.

These went off as the Mexican flag was first raised and then lowered from Jobson’s tower on Russian Hill.

The year before, in 1864, a mishap with a small cannon almost cost Ocamba his eye. This time, the same gun “prematurely discharged” into his left arm. His hand was “blown into fragments, some of which were carried down to Taylor street, a distance of nearly two blocks.” 

A doctor came up the hill, amputated the arm near the shoulder, and the next day Ocamba was reported “doing well and in no danger of losing his life.”

Despite the back-to-back mishaps, for the following year’s Mexican Independence Day an additional 21-gun salute was added at noon.

The US government helped out in 1867, firing a salute from the safety of Alcatraz Island.

Secret Street

The 16-story Comstock apartment tower, built in 1961, stands about where the 21-gun salutes were set off. If you can’t inveigle your way into one of its cool mid-century co-op units, you can get fairly close to where Ocamba lost his arm by walking up the now-dead-end Priest Street behind the building.

I kinda wanna live on this secret block. Sure, there’s no place to park a car and getting your garbage cans out for weekly pick-up has to be a hassle, but the narrow tree-stuffed alley is all twee charm.

Famed newspaper columnist Herb Caen lived at 45 Priest Street in the 1950s.

The street had its name as far back as February 1851 when a rocky 50 x 20-ft lot on the block was put up for public auction. By 1855, the same lot, then with a house on it, was listed as part of the holdings of the Metropolitan Homestead Association and valued at $1,200. A neighboring two-story, five-room house was supposedly worth $1,500. We're talking $43,000-$54,000 in 2024 dollars.

Good deal? Maybe. While possessing great views, in 1855, Priest Street was off the grid. No sewers, gas, water, or lights. It was a long walk down an unpaved hillside to get provisions.

By 1874, city services had arrived. When 4th of July fireworks set off a blaze on Priest Street, a nearby alarm box (#129) was used to call fire fighters. Despite their arrival, $2,000 in property damage was done.

Fireworks set off a number of blazes that day, but there were no reported cannon accidents or hands blown to bits.

Fire Alarm Boxes Again

Surprised there were fire alarm boxes at all in 1874? 

As I wrote in that Jobson’s Folly story, a bell atop the old city hall on Portsmouth Square used to be how the city alerted fire companies of blazes.

With telegraph technology, a call-box system was invented in the 1850s and employed successfully in southern cities before the Civil War. 

In late 1864, San Francisco gave John F. Kennard of the American Fire Alarm Telegraph Company the contract to bring his wires and boxes west.

By May 1865, there were already complaints that false alarms wasted fire department resources and time. (Darned kids!)

But, as I said when I chatted with Alex Mullaney at the SF Standard earlier this year, the benefits and drawbacks of fire boxes haven’t changed for 150 years.

Deemed mostly obsolete and a nuisance, they’re more at risk for removal now than ever before. Enjoy them while you can...

Secret Water Tank

Before the Comstock apartment tower was built across the east side of Priest Street, an 1880s reservoir constructed by the private Spring Valley Water Company occupied the promontory.

The Clay Street tank didn’t make an apparent difference during the fires following the April 18, 1906 earthquake. The surrounding blocks, including Priest Street, were wiped out.

The tank was still there as the city rebuilt, but the City of San Francisco took its own fire-prevention measures with a new auxiliary water system, building another tank a block south.

The city bought the Spring Valley company in 1930 and now owned two tanks atop Nob Hill. The old Clay Street reservoir was removed in the 1940s.

The surplus land was sold by the city to the developers of the Comstock apartments tower, which took a while to get going, making for a nice neighborhood parking lot.

You probably hadn’t noticed the Jones Street tank before, right? Next time you’re up on the hill, check out the tiny building at 1239 Jones Street, which gives city workers access to maintain the tank and has a not-very-informative plaque in front.

Want to see the tank up close? Go around the block to Leroy Place off Sacramento Street, another dead-end alley, and voila!

Pickpockets at the Funeral

A few weeks ago, I wrote about the legacy of Thomas Starr King and the impact his untimely death had on San Francisco. This week I stumbled upon another tidbit, a short item in the Daily Alta from 150 years ago yesterday: 

“Our readers will remember that when the gang of pickpockets who made such a haul at the funeral of the late T. Starr King, and made such extensive levies upon the stocks of dry goods merchants around town, were brought up for trial, Elizabeth Macklin, the ‘Moll’ of ‘Cockney Jack,’ the worst of the gang, got off, while the rest went to the County Jail or State Prison.”

Lizzie the moll not profiting from her lesson...

Cockney Jack...

Pickpockets at a funeral.

I do not know if this counts as “history,” but it is some nice color for the historical novelists out there.

And speaking of historical color...

1982

I’m not sure how we were drunk, but we were drunk and walking up Sutter on our way to Fillmore to climb the hill, descend the hill, and talk our under-aged high-school asses into the Pierce Street Annex.

We had chalked our licenses to make 1965 look like 1961 and used Rich’s mom’s eyebrow pencil to darken our wispy mustaches. We were 16.

In the dark street, as we weaved and jabbered, up ahead a guy wearing a wilted ball cap hailed us as boon companions.

Young men where you headed?

Now?

In life!

We were 16. We both paused and said together, although off a half beat, “The Pierce Street Annex.”

He nodded sagely and handed us the bottle from which he was drinking.

Rich took it and, I couldn’t believe it, took a swig. Then he handed it over to me and, I couldn’t believe it, I took a swig.

My lips burning, my gut a-tingle, I handed ball-cap back his bottle. He lifted one hand in a bishop’s blessing and bellowed to the foggy night sky, “Let them enter thy kingdom, Lord! Let them enter!”

And when we finally reached the triangle and hit the door of the Pierce Street (we were too real for the Balboa Cafe), the doorman didn’t card us but waved us in.

Woody Beer and Coffee Fund

There has been a lot of toasting over the last couple of weeks and hurray for that. Contribute to keeping the bottle moving, genteel sipping of aqua vitae, cups of joe, and drinkables of all kinds. When are you free?

Sources 

“The Metropolitan Homestead Association,” Daily Alta California, March 14, 1855.

“Fire Alarm Telegraph—How to Remedy its Abuse,” Daily Alta California, May 31, 1865, pg. 1.

“At it Again,” Daily Alta California, September 17, 1865, pg. 1.

“The Anniversary of the Independence of Mexico,” Daily Alta California, September 16, 1867, pg. 1.

“The Fire Department Kept on a Run,” Daily Alta California, July 5, 1874, pg. 1.