San Francisco tour
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SAN FRANCISCO — Virtually in the shadow of the towering Transamerica Pyramid, at the intersection of San Francisco's Broadway and Battery streets, is the location where, at "Rocky Point," seafaring Mormon pioneers disembarked, stepping foot for the first time in Yerba Buena, Calif., in 1846.
Tourists standing at the intersection today would likely find that historical fact puzzling as they look three blocks down Broadway to the current docks on the San Francisco Bay.
San Francisco has changed dramatically over the past 160 years, but it is rich in Church history, mostly due to the Brooklyn saints.
While pioneers were making their way cross-country from Nauvoo toward the Rocky Mountains in 1846, another group of Church members was making the journey west by ship. About 250 Latter-day Saints sailed from New York, around Cape Horn to California on the ship Brooklyn under the leadership of
Samuel Brannan. They landed at Yerba Buena on July 31, 1846, a short time after the United States flag was raised for the first time over the previously Mexico-controlled San Francisco Bay area.
Yerba Buena, a short time later renamed San Francisco, was a small settlement in 1846, according to a booklet printed in 1996 by Church public affairs in commemoration of the 150th anniversary of the arrival of the Brooklyn. The San Francisco Mormon History Walking Tour states: "The Mormons more than doubled the population of Yerba Buena and thus, San Francisco became largely a Mormon town."
When Brigham Young, in 1857, called all Church members to Salt Lake City "to help defend Zion against Johnston's Army," according to the booklet, most of the settlers in San Francisco responded and few remnants of their colony remain. Even their original landing spot has been reclaimed from the bay to add flatland to the city.
A walking tour of Church and other historical sites is possible because of the small size of the original settlement within the modern bulging metropolis of San Francisco. The tour is confined primarily to Chinatown and the financial district. It is essentially one of imagination because of 150 years of change.
While the points of interest on the booklet's map included with this article are numbered, the walk can begin at any one. The booklet, now out of print and difficult to find, says the tour takes about 30 minutes, but that depends on pace, how much time is spent at each site and time consumed by distractions of the city's overall fascination. The walk is not overly demanding for those who start fresh, and can be abbreviated. After all, it is mostly an experience of trying to visualize in the mind what things were like in the area for the pioneers.
Much of the tour is in and around Portsmouth Square. The square has been important since the days of Yerba Buena and is where troops first raised the U.S. flag. Today, tourists find a well-developed park, a bustling gathering place for the residents of Chinatown which surrounds it.
Near the square is the site believed to be Brannan's first home where he printed San Francisco's first newspaper — the California Star. It was his newspaper that trumpeted the discovery of gold, triggering the California gold rush of 1849. Today, the building is a bank topped with a three-tiered pagoda. But a plaque in the sidewalk in front of the building recognizes the connection to Brannan.
Less than a block away is the site of the Casa Grande where several Brooklyn families were allowed to live and where the first Church service was held. Church members built homes in the area; when they left to search for gold or return to Utah, "enterprising Chinese merchants, already occupying much of this street, obtained squatters rights on the abandoned Mormon homes."
The Brown's Hotel and Portsmouth Hotel date back to pioneer times.
An interesting side trip to the tour is the location of Church member Philo T. Farnsworth's laboratory where he worked on the invention of the television early in the 20th Century. A plaque honoring him is on the northwest corner of Sansome and Green streets.
And for those willing to drive a short distance and follow a city map, the Isaac Trumbo home is located on the southeast corner of Octavia and Sutter streets. The Church has placed a plaque in front of the house marking it as the place where President Wilford Woodruff died in 1898.
E-mail to: ghill@desnews.com
