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San Francisco

In 1776, Juan Bautista de Anza founded San Francisco, where he established a military outpost. The early colonists, called the Californios, lived a pastoral life and for the most part were not interfered with by the central government of New Spain (as the Spanish empire in the Americas was called) or later (1820s) by that of Mexico. The Californios did, however, become involved in local politics, as when Juan Bautista Alvarado led a revolt (1836) and made himself governor of Alta California, a position he later persuaded the Mexicans to let him keep. Under Mexican rule the missions were secularized (1833–34) and the Native Americans released from their servitude. The degradation of Native American peoples, which continued under Mexican rule and after U.S. settlers came to the area, was described by Helen Hunt Jackson in her novel Ramona (1884). Many mission lands were subsequently given to Californios, who established the great ranchos, vast cattle-raising estates. Colonization of California remained largely Mexican until the 1840s.

In 1848, the year that California became a part of the United States, another major event in the state's history occurred: While establishing a sawmill for John Sutter near Coloma, James W. Marshall discovered gold and touched off the California gold rush. The forty-niners, as the gold-rush miners were called, came in droves, spurred by the promise of fabulous riches from the Mother Lode. San Francisco rapidly became a boom city, and its bawdy, lawless coastal area, which became known as the Barbary Coast, gave rise to the vigilantes, extralegal community groups formed to suppress civil disorder. American writers such as Bret Harte and Mark Twain have recorded the local color as well as the violence and human tragedies of the roaring mining camps.

By 1854, the gold fields had been exhausted, and San Francisco sank into an economic depression from which it would not emerge until the early 1860s with the discovery of the Comstock silver lode in western Nevada. It was this boom, richer and longer-lived than the California Gold Rush, which began to make a real city out of San Francisco, and millionaires out of some of its citizens. Comstock "bonanza kings" like James Flood, whose home is now the elegant Pacific Union Club, built mansions on Nob Hill. Fabric merchant Levi Strauss created a clothing empire by sewing pants for miners out of his leftover tent canvas.

The wild and wooly Barbary Coast roared through the ups and downs of San Francisco. The city gained a justly deserved reputation for vice of every sort. Brothels, gambling halls, and Chinese opium dens were everywhere on the city's eastern waterfront, and unwitting patrons were frequently "shanghaied" into service as sailors. The remnants of the Barbary Coast's scandalous "dance" revues can be seen in the slowly declining strip joints along Broadway in North Beach.

The Chinese, who came to California first to work the gold fields and later to help build the railroad, accounted for 20 percent of San Francisco's working population in 1875. The Chinese faced discrimination and oppressive laws, and, in the late 1870s and 1880s, mob assaults like William T. Coleman's "Pickhandle Brigade." Anti-Chinese demagogue Denis Kearney wielded great power during this period. The 1882 federal Chinese Exclusion Act was not repealed until 1943.

Early in the morning of April 18, 1906, an earthquake with an estimated magnitude of 8.1 on the Richter Scale ripped through San Francisco, destroying hundreds of buildings. As gas mains ruptured, a fire spread through the city, causing far greater damage than the quake itself. Only 500 or so were killed, but an estimated 100,000, left homeless, either fled in ferries and watched their city burn from the Oakland hills, or joined a tent city of 20,000 in what is now Golden Gate Park.

The city quickly rebuilt itself after the earthquake and fire, like the phoenix that rises from the ashes on the San Francisco flag. Celebrating civic triumph over adversity, San Francisco hosted the Panama Pacific International Exposition in 1915, a glittering architectural fantasy built on 635 acres of what is now the Marina District. A great success, the Exposition's steel-reinforced plaster buildings were bulldozed shortly after it closed, leaving only the domed pavilion of the Palace of Fine Arts (site of the Exploratorium).

By the turn of the century the discovery of oil, industrialization resulting from the increase of hydroelectric power, and expanding agricultural development attracted more settlers. Los Angeles grew rapidly in this period and, in population, soon surpassed San Francisco, which suffered greatly after the great earthquake and fire of 1906. Improvements in urban transportation stimulated the growth of both Los Angeles and San Francisco; the advent of the cable car and the electric railway made possible the development of previously inaccessible areas.

Bodie

Bodie was named after Waterman S. Body (also known as William S. Bodey) who discovered gold here in 1859. The change in spelling of the town's name has often been attributed to an illiterate sign painter, but was a deliberate change by the citizenry to insure proper pronunciation.

The town of Bodie rose to prominence with the decline of mining along the western slope of the Sierra Nevada. Prospectors crossing the eastern slope in 1859 to "see the Elephant" - that is, to search for gold - discovered what was to be the Comstock Lode at Virginia City, and started a wild rush to the surrounding high desert country. A mill was established in 1861 and the town began to grow. It started with about 20 miners and grew to an estimated 10,000 people by 1880, making the city Californis's third largest!

The Standard Mine and Mill was first known as the Bunker Hill Mine when it was registered in July 1861. It passed through several hands before being sold for $67,500 to four partners, who changed the name and incorporated as the Standard Company in April 1877. The Standard Mine yielded nearly $15 million over 25 years, and its success caused the rush to Bodie. The Mill was destroyed by fire in 1898, but was rebuilt the following year. While the boom lasted, some 30 companies produced $400,000 in bullion per month for an overall total estimated at $90 to $100 million.

Bodie became a boom town in 1877 and by 1879 Bodie boasted 2,000 buildings, and was second to none for wickedness, badmen, and "the worst climate out of doors". The townsmen constructed casino's, a red-light district, and California's second largest Chinatown. And you know what that used to mean: Opium for everyone! It started with about 20 miners and grew to a town bustling with families, robbers, miners, store owners, gunfighters and prostitutes of all kinds. One little girl, whose family was taking her to the remote and infamous town, wrote in her diary: "Good-bye God, I'm going to Bodie." The phrase came to be known throughout the west.

Killings occurred with monotonous regularity, sometimes becoming almost daily events. The fire bell, which tolled the ages of the deceased when they were buried, rang often and long. Bodie men were never good shots, because usually it was the innocent bystanders who got hit. Robberies, stage holdups, and street fights provided variety, and the town's 65 saloons offered many opportunities for relaxation after hard days of work in the mines. The Reverend F.M. Warrington saw it in 1881 as "a sea of sin, lashed by the tempest of lust and passion." The town even had its own vigilante group called the 601. That stood for six-feet under, zero trials and one rope.

The fact that Bodie had "a man for breakfast" daily aroused little comment, but when one Sunday passed without a single killing, the townsfolk were quick to point out the "Christian spirit" of the place. The town became more known for its wild living than for its big gold resources. Every other building on the mile long main street was a saloon. Seven breweries were working day and night. The whiskey was brought in by horse carriages, 100 barrels at a time. The reported sixty brothels, which were open twenty-four hours a day, kept an estimated eighteen hundred members of the gentler sex in full employment, and as it must have taken an astronomical number of clients to keep these lassies fully operational, the righteous element in Bodie must have been almost nil.

The boom was over in four short years and by 1882, Bodie was in the grips of decline. The rich mines were playing out and mining companies were going bankrupt. Two fires, one in 1892 and the other in 1932, ravaged the business district. Bodie faded into a ghost town during the 1940's. It became a State Historic Park in 1962, managed in a state of arrested decay. Today, with less than 10% of the town still standing, it is still the largest ghost town in the western United States, and what is left looks much the same as it did over 50 years ago when the last residents left.

Nearly everyone has heard about the infamous "Badman from Bodie." Some historians say that he was a real person by the name of Tom Adams. Others say his name was Washoe Pete. It seems more likely, however, that he was a composite. Bad men, like bad whiskey and bad climate, were endemic to the area. Although the origins have been lost to time, in the later half of the nineteenth century mothers used the "badman from Bodie" to frighten their children into behaving. During those times, he must have been a far more real figure than the bogeyman.

Whatever the case, the streets are quiet now. Bodie still has its wicked climate but, with the possible exception of an occasional ghostly visitor, its badmen are all in their graves.

In E.L. Doctorow's great novel of the American West Welcome to Hard Times (1960) a remarkable villian was created, the man from Bodie, an outlaw who single handedly destroyed a town in a single day. The screen adaptation (1967) is pretty true to the book ... the Man from Bodie (Aldo Ray) rides in and terrorizes the small settlement of Hard Times. He kills a number of townsfolk, including Fee (Paul Birch) the town's founder. Mayor Will Blue (Henry Fonda) fails to stand up to the man, who rapes saloon whore Molly (Janice Rule) and burns down the town. Blue promises to rebuild the town after the stranger rides on, but the townsfolk give up and leave. A wagon load of prostitutes led by "entrepeneur" Zar (Keenan Wynn) shows up and together with Blue, they rebuild the town. But Molly's desire for revenge and her anger at Blue for not protecting her eat at her, and Blue promises that things will be different when the stranger returns. And return he does.

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