Before the jailhouse rocked.
Map: Here’s what San Francisco looked like in 1856

In 1848, when news of gold in the California River first touched off a frenzy in America, San Francisco was home to only about 1,000 people.
Within two years the city swelled to some 25,000, a “speedy transition from a city of tents and shacks to one of brick and stone buildings, architecturally on a par with those of Atlantic seaboard cities,” as the history site SF Museum puts it.
But what did the rough and tumble “Instant City” look like in those day? It can be hard to imagine, since so much of 19th century San Francisco was lost to the 1906 earthquake.
A series of photos from 1856—the year San Francisco County formed and first distinguished itself from San Mateo County, by which time SF was populated at roughly 30,000—shows a resolute and established metro by the bay, one that looks as if it had spent decades percolating.
These scenes, photographed by G.R. Fardon, appear in a number of collections, but in this case have been licensed to Curbed SF by Southern Methodist Univeristy’s DeGolyer Library in Dallas, Texas, here applied to a modern map to create a tactile sense of San Francisco as it existed at the height of gold fever.
(Note that locations are approximate and modern street addresses are used to get map locales on the same block as historical sites rather than to pinpoint them precisely.)
For more historic imagery of Baghdad by the Bay, check out Curbed SF’s 10 oldest photos of San Francisco, rare photos of days before the 1906 quake, and 150 years of Dolores Park.
- DeGolyer Library
- San Francisco In 1856 [SF Museum]
1 View of Alcatraz
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CA 94133
2 North Beach, from Telegraph Hill
A look at a bald North Beach.
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San Francisco, CA
3 View down Stockton Street
Looking north toward Marin.
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San Francisco, CA 94133
4 Telegraph Hill (as seen from Stockton and Sacramento)
A populated little hamlet in one of they city’s most charming neighborhoods.
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San Francisco, CA
5 Russian Hill, from Telegraph Hill
Another scene of homes dotting the landscape.
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San Francisco, CA
6 Montgomery Street (east side)
Most of these dwellings are no longer standing.
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San Francisco, CA
7 Kearny Street
Got to love that hardware store signage. Simple, elegant.
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San Francisco, CA
8 Custom House
The current historical Custom House on Battery Street dates to 1911. This previous Battery Street locale was possibly the first seismically retrofitted building in U.S. history.
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San Francisco, CA 94111
9 Merchants’ Exchange
The first of three Merchants’ Exchange locales in San Francisco.
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San Francisco, CA 94111
10 Firehouse, Monumental Engine Company
”It was a magnificent building, originally two stones in height, the first having a granite front, the second being freestone, massive pilasters of Corinthian style supported cornices,” notes Guardians of the City about this firehouse. “In the facade was a large clock, which was illuminated by night. Over the pediment of the clock was a cupola the dome of which rested on eight Corinthian columns.”
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CA 94111
11 Former post office, Portsmouth Square
Onetime post office in what would later become Chinatown.
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San Francisco, CA 94108
12 City Hall
SF’s original City Hall, located off Portsmouth Square.
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San Francisco, CA 94111
13 “Fort Vigilance”
This converted warehouse served as armory and headquarters for one of SF’s many vigilante gangs.
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2 Embarcadero Center, San Francisco, CA 94111
14 View down Sacramento Street
Sacramento street was always a looker.
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San Francisco, CA 94108
15 St Mary’s Cathedral
The church that still stands today.
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San Francisco, CA 94108
16 View from Rincon Point
Near the coastline at the Rincon Hill/Embarcadero border.
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San Francisco, CA 94105
17 California Street
Unidentified strip of buildings along California.
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San Francisco, CA
18 Happy Valley (now South of Market)
This onetime neighborhood started as a collection of gold miner’s tents in 1849.
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San Francisco, CA 94105
19 South Park
San Francisco’s oldest park’s, which still exists.
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San Francisco, CA 94107
20 Mission San Francisco de Asís
AKA, “the old mission.”
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San Francisco, CA