• Grogan-Lent-Atherton Bldg.
• Ship Building
• Burr Building
• Hotaling Annex East
• Hotaling Annex West
• Diana's Saloon
• Society of California Pioneers Headquaters
• Old Ship Saloon
• Medico-Dental Building
• Former French consulate

(701 Sansome Strteet) This beautifully maintained rough brick structure provides a meaningful beginning to the 400 block of Jackson Street. Notable are the arched ground floor openings which are framed in white stone (Olmsted and Watkins 1969: 274).

The Grogan-Lent-Atherton Building (14) at 400 Jackson dates from 1859 (Wiley 2000: 151).

In 1858 William M. Lent, president of the Savage Mining Co., organized the financing of the Comstock Lode in this building (Society of California Pioneers, Landmark No. 27 plaque).

This building was so named because a ship's hull--historically thought to be the Georgian--is incorporated in the building. Much of the original facade was covered during remodeling in 1954 and 1959 (Olmsted and Watkins 1969: 281).

E. O. I. Building. Originally a warehouse, this yellow brick building is now used for offices. It is Italianate in style and has been carefully restored (Woodbridge and Woodbridge 1992: 48; Gebhard, Sandweiss and Winter 1985: 62: pp; Olmsted and Watkins 1969: 305).

In 1856, Captain [Ephraim] Burr won the San Francisco mayoral election; legend has it that it took a thousand armed men and a police wagon at each polling station to purify the election. Burr had a reputation for honesty--indeed, for penny-pinching--that appealed to voters. He established the San Francisco Accumulating Fund, commonly known as the Clay Street Bank, California's first savings and loan company. As mayor, Burr was foresighted enough to back Andrew Hallidie's invention of the cable car with $30,000 in 1873 (Alexander and Heig 2002: 292).

Born in Rhode Island, March 7, 1809, Ephraim Willard Burr came to California in 1850 to secure crews for whaling ships; however, realizing he could no longer provide men to man the ships, he turned his attention to new business enterprises. He became a commission merchant in partnership with J. Mattoon and later established the San Francisco Accumulating Fund, later called the Savings and Loan Society, but more popularly known as the Clay Street Bank. This was the first savings bank on the Pacific Coast. The People's Party elected him mayor in 1856 and he officially took office Nov. 15. After his three-year term as mayor he returned to the Clay Street Bank as its president and remained there until forced to resign in 1878 because of charges that he had accepted a five percent commission for granting loans on Navy Paymaster's Certificates. He died in San Francisco, on July 20, 1894 (Hansen 1995: 117).

The Hotaling Annex East (18) at 445 Jackson was originally a stable for a hotel. Hotaling took over both this building and the Hotaling Annex West (19) (1860) at 463-73 Jackson for warehouse space for his liquor business (Wiley 2000: 151; Woodbridge and Woodbridge 1992: 47).

The [Hotaling] warehouse at 463 seems to have been built around 1860. It is in the same general style of 451-461 Jackson, but more restrained in ornamentation. In this case the pediments over the windows are less elaborate, and all of those over the second floor windows are arched, while those of the third floor are pointed.

The cast iron pillars employed in these and many other buildings of the period now permit an almost totally glazed facade for the first floor, a characteristic that makes such buildings eminently eligible for modern shop use. At the time the style of these buildings was characteristic of San Francisco, they, too, would have had glass fronts had they been used as stores; as warehouses, they had floor-to-ceiling iron doors, which greatly facilitated the handling of heavy goods (Olmsted and Watkins 1969: 52-53).

Hotaling took over both this building [Hotaling Annex East] and the Hotaling Annex West (19) (1860) at 463-73 Jackson for warehouse space for his liquor business. The latter was the headquarters for the New Deal Federal Artists and Federal Writers projects in the 1930s. Here a group of writers, including Kenneth Rexroth and Madeline Gleason, compiled San Francisco, the Bay and Its Cities, a guidebook, which is still worth reading (Wiley 2000: 151-52; Woodbridge and Woodbridge 1992: 47).

The notorious Barbary Coast was one of the most unlamented victims of the 1906 fire, which swept the area between Jackson Square and almost the crest of Telegraph Hill. The only one of the Coast's pre-quake saloons still standing was at one time "Diana's"--now "The Brighton Express"--at 580 Pacific Avenue. This building, with its attractive arched doorway and windows, may have been built in the 1860's. Curiously, the formal and apparently balanced facade is not quite symmetrical--as though the bricklayers had traced the facade out on the ground with a stick, agreed to the general appearance, started building at one end, and failed to come out even. Presumably only the bare shell of the building survived the fire, and even much of that may be a reconstruction (Olmsted and Watkins 1969: 57-58).

Presently used as a warehouse, this structure was originally built as the headquarters for the Society of California Pioneers with money left to the Society by James Lick. Of severe design, the brick building was rebuilt extensively in 1907 (Olmsted and Watkins 1969: 281).

Best known as the Old Ship Saloon, this substantial brick building recalls the Gold Rush when vessels were pulled up on the muddy San Francisco foreshores and used for commerce. It is considered to relate to the Arkansas which was beached nearby and converted to an English ale house in 1850 (Olmsted and Watkins 1969: 284).

The Old Ship Saloon (52) (1861) on the northeast corner [of Pacific and Battery Sts.] is one of the last of the old waterfront bars. The original Old Ship Saloon was the ship Arkansas, which was overtaken by the waterfront after its arrival in 1849. In 1859, the Arkansas was cut up and replaced by this brick building, which was both a saloon and a boarding house. Sailors stayed here at their peril, as crimps operated from the saloon, providing men by one means or another for ships' captains (Wiley 2000: 251)

Cast iron pilasters on the first floor and brick work on the second give a distinguished appearance to this building which once housed medical-dental offices. The hulls of two dismantled schooners were used in its construction (Olmsted and Watkins 1969: 274).

The Medico-Dental Building (17) at 435 Jackson is built on the hulls of two abandoned ships. Although the building was used as a wine, tobacco, and coffee warehouse, the caducei above the pilasters indicate an unknown connection to the medical profession (Wiley 2000: 151).

A magnificent example of the textural properties of old brick is seen in the former French consulate at 432 Jackson Street. Combined with the surface qualities of the brick, the pattern of Romanesque arches of the first-floor facade, and the flat, recessed arches of the second-floor windows, the plane trees of recent vintage enhance an inherent interplay of light and shadow.

Said to have been the first French consulate building in San Francisco, the structure was erected about 1865. In keeping with this romantic flavor, its later tenants included Ina Coolbrith, poet laureate of California, and a school of languages conducted by a Professor J. Mibielle. Further, Balance Street, which flanks one side of the building, was named for the Balance, a Gold Rush ship which ended her last voyage landlocked forever by the encroaching wharves and streets of the growing city (Olmsted and Watkins 1969: 53, 54).