San Francisco:
I was too excited by the fascinating architecture in San Francisco — so I’m blogging about my research results. I was especially curious about what was so unique about San Fran that it wound up with such a prevalent blend of architecture, namely Victorian, Mission Revival, and Art Deco, with Art Nouveau and Neo-Classical details.
San Francisco’s origin was a joint military-mission settlement in 1776: El Presidio Real de San Francisco and Mission San Francisco de Asís (technically the mission arrived six months after the military). California became part of independent Mexico, the mission system ended, and Cali was ceded to the US within the next century. Through all that, San Francisco, or Yerba Buena as it was briefly know, remained a small settlement. In 1849, at the onset of the California Gold Rush, San Francisco found itself balanced between being the closest and easiest accessible harbor to the gold rush local near Sacramento (there was technically a closer port at Benicia but it was farther into the bay). While the actual prospecting rewards were slim, entrepreneurship and trade grew swiftly in the city. Levi jeans, Ghirardelli chocolate, and Wells Fargo are some long-term survivors from this period.
After the gold rush petered out, silver ore was discovered near San Francisco, further entrenching it as the major trade center of California in the late 1800s. It was also the major army site on the West Coast, the American military having taken over the site of the original Presidio. So at this point, all well and good, set to develop into a regular city that builds and rebuilds on top of itself.
The difference in San Francisco is the major earthquake of April 18, 1906 and the resulting fires that effectively destroyed 80% of the city. Because of its prestige as a major trade center, city officials worked quickly (as in even before the flames were fully out) to underplay the statistics and secured loans and funding to rebuild the city. By 1915, San Francisco was by-and-large rebuilt — the majority of an affluent city (re)built in one decade, at the end of the Victorian & Art Nouveau eras, the beginning of the Art Deco era, and the high point of the Mission Revival era.
In 1915, San Francisco hosted the Panama-Pacific International Exposition, nominally to celebrate the opening of the Panama Canal — it was also the city’s international announcement that they had survived and were still thriving.
