Modern San Francisco in the making
by oliverlcm
San Francisco in the 1920’s and 30’s
San Francisco, officially known as the City and county of San Francisco was one of the most prominent urban centre at the start of the 19 centuries. Since the discovery of gold in 1848 (Gold Rush Era) to the Post- US Civil War era of 1870s, San Francisco has been the most promising trading centre across all California. Know for being its maritime trades, San Francisco is home to Port of San Francisco, one of the best harbour in the world.
San Francisco population experienced a large growth during the mid 1850s due to the discovery of gold on Sutter’s Mill, near Coloma. the Gold Rush attracted gold seekers from all over the country, even some foreign Chinese immigrants to settle down in San Francisco. From mid 18 century, San Francisco population grew from 1000 people into over 25,000 people and counting. The San Francisco Bay area is often filled with boats that immigrants that wanted to settle down near the source of gold. Since the demand of land and supplies was increased, San Francisco county slowly expanded outward into neighbouring cities.
The Aerial view of San Francisco Bay
San Francisco: The Aftermath of Gold Rush
By mid 1850s, most of the accessible gold had be emptied by gold rushers and soon later, those forty-niners have found themselves home in the heart of San Francisco Bay area.
After the Gold rush died down in the 1860s, late gold-seekers began to settle down in the city of San Francisco
The Life of San Francisco inhabitants
Because of the gold rush, San Francisco suffers from many of the problems other mining towns suffer from. Gangsterism, alcoholism, black-markets, prostitutions, corruption all ran rampant during the golden era of San Francisco development.
Regardless of the problems mentioned above, San Francisco became “Paris of the West” because how fast San Francisco began developing into a major city in 1800s US.
The iconic cable cars in Downtown San Francisco was build around 1880s
San Francisco successfully made the transition from 1800s into 1900 under mayor James D. Phelan. Mayor Phelan was able to rescue San Francisco from deeply rooted corruption problems and was able to increase the number of infrastructures and services to meet the demands of a rapidly growing population.
With a growing population, San Francisco was extremely prone to diseases and plagues and in 1900, bubonic plague had struck San Francisco and its inhabitants.
The bubonic plague of 1904
Shipments from from Europe contain rats that were infested with bubonic plague, costing what appears to be one of the most devastating plague in US history due to the high density, high population nature of San Francisco. Authorities prohibited all access to neighbouring cities and ordered to quarantine sections of San Francisco mainly the lower region around Chinatown. Due to the nature of bubonic plague can be spread easily, officials banned most of the in-city burials and move majority of the cemeteries/ burial grounds into rural areas.
The high density, high population San Francisco found themselves in another epidemic two years after the bubonic plague that reaped San Francisco.
The massive earthquake that took place in 1906 shook the entire San Francisco population. Caused by the San Andrea faults, the earthquake devastated San Francisco with wild fire and tsunami. halting daily activities in San Francisco.
The earthquake was recorded to have a 7.8 Richter scale, seawater flooded into the heart of San Francisco, temporarily disable all forms of traffics within San Francisco
Search and rescue missions and mass evacuation missions saved thousands from their houses, shelters and workplace. The death toll was estimated to be 2500+ by the end of the rescue mission. Refugee camps were setted up by the government around the outskirts of San Francisco in order to relief the crowned temporary shelters in San Francisco.
Reconstruction
Being one of the developed city in United State at the time, San Francisco began to rebuild in no time. Buildings and structures were completely overhauled by new engineers.
One of the most unique features about San Francisco was the Haussmann style streets and complexes in Downtown San Francisco. The overall spacing of San Francisco properties were rearranged by officials and engineers in attempts to revolutionize San Francisco once again.
Aftermath and the transition into the “Roaring 20s”
San Francisco sustained the economic prosperities that was carried over during the turn of the century. Similar to other major cities in US such as Los Angeles, New York, Chicago, a rise of modernism changed San Francisco on both socially and economically. Americans began demanding for entertainments and leisure activities; hence, a series of social reforms and feminist activities began to gain momentum in the Roaring 20s.
