Having fairly surveyed the legitimate business we wish to see something of the engrossing avocation of most of the people of the city, of any business or no business, and we pass on to Montgomery, crossing over to the center of the stock exchange activities. Groups of men and women are watching the tapes in the brokers' offices, messengers are running in and out the board entrances, intense excitement is everywhere apparent. Having gained admission to the gallery of the board room we look down on the frantic mob, buying and selling Comstock shares. How much is really sold and how much is washing no one knows, but enormous transactions, big with fate, are of everyday occurrence. As we pass out we notice a man with strong face whose shoes show dire need of patching. Asked his name, I answer, "Jim Keane; just now he is down, but some day he is bound to be way up."
We saunter up Clay, passing Burr's Savings Bank and a few remaining stores, to Kearny, and Portsmouth Square, whose glory is departing. The City Hall faces it, and so does Exempt Engine House, but dentists' offices and cheap theaters and Chinese stores are crowding in. Clay Street holds good boarding-houses, but decay is manifest. We pass on to Stockton, still a favorite residence street; turning south we pass, near Sacramento, the church in which Starr King first preached, now proudly owned by the negro Methodists. At Post we reach Union Square, nearly covered by the wooden pavilion in which the Mechanics' Institute holds its fairs. Diagonally opposite the southeast corner of the desecrated park are the buildings of the ambitious City College, and east of them a beautiful church edifice always spoken of as "Starr King's Church."
Very likely, seeing the church, I might be reminded of one of Mr. King's most valued friends, and suggest that we call upon him at the Golden Gate Flour-mill in Pine Street, where the California Market was to stand. If we met Horace Davis, I should feel that I had presented one of our best citizens.
Dinner presents many opportunities; but I am inclined to think we shall settle on Frank Garcia's restaurant in Montgomery near Jackson, where good service awaits us, and we may hear the upraised voices of some of the big lawyers who frequent the place. For the evening we have the choice between several bands of minstrels, but if Forrest and John McCullough are billed for "Jack Cade" we shall probably call on Tom Maguire. After the strenuous play we pass up Washington Street to Peter Job's and indulge in his incomparable ice-cream.
On Sunday I shall continue my guidance. Churches are plentiful and preachers are good. In the afternoon I think I may venture to invite my friend to The Willows, a public garden between Mission and Valencia and Seventeenth and Nineteenth streets. We shall hear excellent music in the open air and can sit at a small table and sip good beer. I find such indulgence far less wicked than I had been led to believe.
When there is something distinctive in a community a visitor is supposed to take it in, and in the evening we attend the meeting of the Dashaway Association in its own hall in Post Street near Dupont. It numbers five thousand members and meets Sunday mornings and evenings. Strict temperance is a live issue at this time. The Sons of Temperance maintain four divisions. There are besides two lodges of Good Templars and a San Francisco Temperance Union. And in spite of all this the city feels called upon to support a Home for Inebriates at Stockton and Chestnut streets, to which the supervisors contribute two hundred and fifty dollars a month.
I shall feel that I am derelict if I do not manage a jaunt to the Cliff House. The most desirable method demands a span of horses for a spin out Point Lobos Avenue. We may, however, be obliged to take a McGinn bus that leaves the Plaza hourly. It will be all the same when we reach the Cliff and gaze on Ben Butler and his companion sea-lions as they disport themselves in the ocean or climb the rocks. Wind or fog may greet us, but the indifferent monsters roar, fight, and play, while the restless waves roll in. We must, also, make a special trip to Rincon Hill and South Park to see how and where our magnates dwell. The 600 block in Folsom Street must not be neglected. The residences of such men as John Parrott and Milton S. Latham are almost palatial. It is related that a visitor impressed with the elegance of one of these places asked a modest man in the neighborhood if he knew whose it was. "Yes," he replied, "it belongs to an old fool by the name of John Parrott, and I am he."
We shall leave out something distinctive if we do not call at the What Cheer House in Sacramento Street below Montgomery, a hostelry for men, with moderate prices, notwithstanding many unusual privileges. It has a large reading-room and a library of five thousand volumes, besides a very respectable museum. Guests are supplied with all facilities for blacking their own boots, and are made at home in every way. Incidentally the proprietor made a good fortune, a large part of which he invested in turning his home at Fourteenth and Mission streets into a pleasure resort known as Woodward's Gardens, which for many years was our principal park, art gallery and museum.
These are a few of the things I could have shown. But to know and appreciate the spirit and character of a city one must live in it and be of it; so I beg to be dismissed as a guide and to offer experiences and events that may throw some light on life in the stirring sixties.
When I migrated from Humboldt County and enlisted for life as a San Franciscan I lived with my father's family in a small brick house in Powell Street near Ellis. The Golden West Hotel now covers the lot. The little houses opposite were on a higher level and were surrounded by small gardens. Both street and sidewalks were planked, but I remember that my brother and I, that we might escape the drifting sand, often walked on the flat board that capped the flimsy fence in front of a vacant lot. On the west of Powell, at Market, was St. Ann's Garden and Nursery. On the east, where the Flood Building stands, was a stable and riding-school.