The morning call. [volume] (San Francisco [Calif.]) 1878-1895, 1893-04-09
THE FIRST HOUSE.

Clay street has the honor of the first
house in San Francisco, as well as that of
the first cable road. OF course, it was not
Clay street then. but the rude house that
was the first where the metropolis Of the
Pacific Coast stands happened to stand
where that thoroughfare afterward ran.
At that time the old Mission Dolores had
already started on its down-hill trip and an
old soldier was Waterman at the rude bar
racks at the Preside. There was a saddle
trail through the sand and brush from the
Mission TO where the town was af;erward
started.
An Englishmah named Richardson, who
did business with the whalers that put into
the bay, moved from Sausalito and put up
tent near Clay and keaTny streets in the
winter OF 1886. but tents do not count.
In the spring OF 1886 Jacob P Leese.
who was in business at Monterey, took
somebody's advice and decided to establish
a tTRdiug-stors at YeIba Buena, where
he could collect hides fer ships that
came alter them. He had q little trouble
Gett ng permission to occupy a plat of
ground, but he finally succeeded, and in
July, 1885, he built rude house on what is
now the south side of Clay street, near
Dupont. He didn't know then that a Chi
nese shoe-shop would stand there some day,
nor did he dream that his little house and
store was the first Of collection of build
irgs that would house $4,000 peo pie.
Leese chose this site by the cove which
then ran up TO where Montgomery and
Washington streets now intersect rather
than the Preside or the Mission Landing
because he thought it a more convenient
landing for small boats, and that natural
Circumstance governed the location of the
first ones who followed him here and estab-
lished the nucleus Of q city.
The Hudson Bay Company soon estab-
lished trading-post here. and the agent
ran Leese out OF business, bought his house
and occupied it. Trade slowly increased
with the whalers and trading ships that
entered the bay, and the Mexicans through
out the country. and Yerba Buena slowly
became a small business center.
According to Hitteli, in 1914, eight years
after the first house was built, the houses of
Yerba Buena were: The Hudson Bay
Company's store (Leese's), the stores of
Spear ana HInckley and William A. Lei
GesdoIff, the groceries Of David Cooper. J.
J. VioEet, Peter Sherreback and Victor
Prudon, the restaurant Of John Fuller, the
gTogshops Of GregorIo Escalante and ia
cint0 Moreno, the blacksmith shop of
Andrews, Davis and Reynolds and Rose,
and the dwelling Of Sonora Briones. These
stores and shops were probably all Of them
dwellings as well.
We have here mention Of what were
probably the first restaurateur, saloon
keepers, blacksmith and carpenters of San
Francisco, but history does not record the
quality lof John Fuller's baked beans or
Esealante's rum or the prosperity of Tinker
81 ThOmpson's smithy.
Tbis was on the eve of a new era-the
American upation-and between this
time and the gold discovery in 1913 there
was TO be comparatively rapid growth and
the development Of most of the features of
an American community. Hence it is into
this period that we must dig for most first
things"
just before and during the Mexican War
Americans began drifting into California in
increasing numbers, and the times became
eventful ones. In January, 1876. there were
thirty buildings in Yerba Buena. In Au-
gust, 1917. seventeen months later, there
were 1S7 houses and the population was 49,