Naming the Streets of San Francisco

As Igor humps their stuff from Howard to Post, we take this day to reflect on the names of these streets of San Francisco.

Prior to the year 1835 the few ships that came into the bay of San Francisco usually anchored opposite the Presidio at Black Point, at North Point or at Sausalito. The latter was inconvenient and the anchorage of the others was unsafe. In consequence thereof, vessels began to seek the shelter and better anchorage found off what was known as Yerba Buena Cove, and the shipmasters petitioned Governor Figueroa to establish a port of entry there. This petition was favorably considered and as a consequence the town site of Yerba Buena, of which San Francisco is the successor, was laid out at the head of the cove in the latter part of October, 1835, by Francisco de Haro, an Alcalde residing at the Mission Dolores.

He did so by marking upon the ground a simple street called La Calle de la Fundacion, or Foundation street. It started from a point near the present corner of Kearny and Pine streets and ran in a northeasterly direction toward North Beach, having Telegraph Hill at one end and sand hills at the other.

The place was then declared to be a port of entry, and Captain William A. Richardson, who had arrived in California in 1823, and had become a naturalized citizen of Mexico, was made captain of the port. He had been acting as agent of a couple of schooners that were engaged in carrying on a desultory trade up and down the sea coast. He made a rough sketch of the location, and having brought over his family from Sausalito, where he had long resided, fixed his residence on the side hill near where Dupont street now is, between Clay and Washington streets. His house, being a combination of house and tent, was the first one located in the future city and he and his family were the first residents.

A year later, in 1836, the village contained in the neighborhood of thirty or forty houses, located in the sandhills around the present plaze.

In 1839, Governor Alvarado directed a survey to be made of the place, and Jose Castro, the prefect of the district, employed for that purpose Jean J. Vioget, who in November of that year surveyed and platted out the village of Yerba Buena, included between the present Broadway, Montgomery, Powell and California streets.

He did not, however, name any of the streets, nor did Richardson do so on his rough sketch.

On the 9th day of July, 1846, Commander John B. Montgomery, of the United States sloop of war Portsmouth, with seventy seamen and marines under command of Lieutenant Watson, took possession of the village and raised the United States flag.

He appointed a naval officer, Lieutenant Washington A. Bartlett, Alcalde of the place, the first under United States authority. In September Bartlett was elected to the position which he held until February, 1847. This was not the Washington Bartlett who was many years afterward elected Governor of the State.

When Lieutenant Bartlett ended his career as Alcalde he resumed his position as an officer of the Navy and sailed away, never afterward to have any connection with the history of the city or State.

Bartlett, as Alcalde, employed a civil engineer named Jasper O’Farrell, who in 1845 had been in the military service with General John A. Sutter, to enlarge the old Vioget survey of 1839. O’Farrell took the present corner of Kearny and Washington streets as his starting point and enlarged the survey as far as North Beach, and west as far as Taylor street. He laid out Market street as the future main thoroughfare, corresponding in direction with Mission street, the road to the Mission Dolores, which, on account of the prevailing sandhills and salt marsh, was the only road at that time leading out of the city. The survey south of Market street ran on Second and Third streets as far as South Beach, and on Market street as far as Fifth street, leaving out the swamps or marsh south and west of Mission and Fourth streets.

O’Farrell named all the streets embraced in his survey, and laid down on his map and numbered the fifty vara lots between Taylor and Post streets and the bay.

In the following year, 1847, by direction of Alcalde Edwin Bryant, O’Farrell also laid off, surveyed and mapped the beach and water lot property lying between Montgomery and East streets, Telegraph Hill and Rincon Hill.

In the meantime, however, Alcalde Bartlett had by proclamation dated January 19, 1847, changed the name of the village of Yerba Buena (meaning a good herb) to that of San Francisco, and by that name it was finally, on April 15, 1850, chartered as a city by the State Legislature, the boundaries thereof being Webster and Sixteenth streets and the bay.

An Ayuntamiento, or Town Council, with power to frame municipal laws and to appoint necessary town officers, was established in August, 1847, by order of Governor Mason.

In December, 1849, Sansome street was opened to Bush street, Bush to Market, and First to Folsom, $5000 toward the purpose being raised by private subscription.

At the time the United States forces took possession of Yerba Buena, in 1846, there were about 300 inhabitants scattered about the sandhills. Small settlements had for a long time prior thereto existed at the Mission Dolores and at the Presidio, but they formed no part of the village of Yerba Buena. They did not fully become a part of San Francisco until 1856, when the act of the Legislature consolidating the city and county went into operation.

In February, 1849, the population of San Francisco was estimated at 2000. It rapidly increased thereafter.

Early in 1850 William M. Eddy was elected City Surveyor by the Ayuntamiento, or Town Council, and directed to complete the survey of San Francisco. He completed the survey of the city between Larkin and Ninth streets and the bay, and mapped the fifty-vara and 100-vara lots not platted by O’Farrell. At this time many people thought, on the account of the prevailing high hills and the valleys, that the streets north of Market street should have been laid out in terraces around the hills instead of at right angles as they exist at present, believing it to be impossible to establish grades as they are now.

Coincidentally, two of those streets were named after members of the Ayuntamiento, or Town Council, of the day.

HOWARD STREET—After W.D.M. Howard, a very prominent, wealthy, and influential business man of early times. He was a member of the Ayuntamiento, or Town Council, elected December 27, 1848. He died many years ago. George Howard, a prominent real estate man and one time member of the Legislature from San Mateo County, was a brother. The Howard Presbyterian Church was named after W.D.M. Howard, he having advanced most if not all the funds for building the first church edifice for that congregation. His firm, Mellus & Howard, September 1848, erected the first brick building in San Francisco. It was located at the corner of Montgomery and Clay streets.

POST STREET—After Gabriel B. Post, a very prominent and influential merchant in the fifties and later. He was elected a member of the Ayuntamiento, or Town Council, August 1, 1849. In his time he was one of the leaders in public movements.

Source: San Francisco Call. 8 September 1901. 5 and 7 (Magazine Section).