The Lure of San Francisco Part 1

The Lure of San Francisco.

by Elizabeth Gray Potter and Mabel Thayer Gray.

Preface

The average visitor considers California's claim to historic recognition as dating from the discovery of gold. Her children, both by birth and adoption, have a hazy pride in her Spanish origin but are too busy with today's interests to take much thought of it. They know that somewhere over in the Mission is the old adobe church. They rejoice that it escaped the fire but have no time to visit it. They will proudly tell their eastern friends of its existence and that the Presidio received its name from the Spaniards but further narration of the heritage is lost in exclamations over the beauty of the drives and the views, while the historic significance of Portsmouth Square is smothered in the delight over Chinese embroideries, bronzes and cloisonne.

May this little book aid in the general awaking of the dormant love of every Californian for his possessions and be a suggestion to the casual visitor that we are ent.i.tled to the dignity of age.

The Mission

A view from Twin Peaks--The city with its historic crosses. A visit to the old church--Its past, and the romance of Luis Arguello.

The Mission and Its Romance

"Tickets to the city, Sir?" The conductor's voice sounded above the rumble of the train. As my companion's hand went to his pocket he glanced at me with a quizzical smile.

"I should think you Oaklanders would resent that. Hasn't your town put on long skirts since the fire?" There was an unpleasant emphasis on the last phrase, but I pa.s.sed it over unnoticed.

"Of course we have grown up," I a.s.sured him. "We're a big flourishing city, but we are not the city. San Francisco always has been, and always will be the city to all northern California; it was so called in the days of forty-nine and we still cling affectionately to the term."

"I believe you Californians have but two dates on your calendar," he exclaimed, "for everything I mention seems to have happened either 'before the fire' or 'in the good old days of forty-nine!' 'Good old days of forty-nine,'" he repeated, amused. "In Boston we date back to the Revolution, and 'in Colonial times' is a common expression. We have buildings a hundred years old, but if you have a structure that has lasted a decade, it is a paragon and pointed out as built 'before the fire.' Do you remember the pilgrimage we made to the historic shrines of Boston, just a year ago?"

"Shall I ever forget it!" I exclaimed.

He smiled appreciatively. "Faneuil Hall and the old State House are interesting."

"Oh, I wasn't thinking about the buildings! I don't even recall how they look. But I do remember the weather. I was so cold I couldn't even speak."

"Impossible!" he cried, "you not able to talk!"

"But it's true! My cheeks were frozen stiff. I wore a thick dress, a sweater, a heavy coat and my furs, and, still I was cold while all the time I was thinking that the fruit trees and wild flowers were in blossom in California. If it hadn't been for the symphony concerts and the opera, I never could have endured an Eastern winter."

"A fine compliment to me when I spent days taking you to points of historic interest."

I sent him an appreciative glance. "It was good of you," I acknowledged, "and do you remember that I promised to take you on a similar pilgrimage when you came to San Francisco?"

He laughed. "And I was foolish enough to believe you, since I had never been to the Pacific Coast."

The train came to a stop in the Ferry Building and we followed the other pa.s.sengers onto the boat. "San Francisco is modern to the core," he continued. "Boston dates back generations, but you have hardly acquired your three score years and ten."

"If you don't like fine progressive cities, why did you come to California?" His fault-finding with San Francisco hurt me as if it had been a personal criticism.

"You know why I came," he said gently, with his eyes on my face.

I felt the blood creeping to my cheeks and turned quickly to look for an out-of-doors seat. In the crowd we were jostled by a little slant-eyed man of the Orient, resplendent in baggy blue silk trousers tied neatly at the ankles and a loose coat lined with lavender, whose flowing sleeves half concealed his slender brown hands.

"There's a man who has centuries at his back." My companion's eyes traveled from the soft padded shoes to the little red b.u.t.ton on the top of the black skull cap. "Even his costume is the same as his forefathers'."

"If you are interested in the Chinese, I'll show you Oriental San Francisco. It lies in the heart of the city and its very atmosphere is saturated with Eastern customs. It is much more sanitary but not as picturesque as it was before the fire." I flushed as I saw his amus.e.m.e.nt, and quickly called his attention to the receding sh.o.r.es where the encircling green hills had thrown out long banners of yellow mustard and blue lupins. To the right was Mt. Tamalpais, a st.u.r.dy sentinel looking out to the ocean, its summit pressed against the sky's blue canopy and its base lost in a network of purple forests. In front of the Golden Gate was Alcatraz Island, like a huge dismantled warship, guarding the entrance to the bay, and before us, San Francisco rested upon undulating hills, its tall buildings piercing the sky at irregular intervals. We made our way to the forward deck in order to have the full sweep of the waterfront.

"You should see it at night!" I said, "it is a marvelous tiara. The red and green lights on these wharves close to the water's edge are the rubies and emeralds, while above, sweeping the hills, the lights of the residences sparkle like rows and rows of diamonds."

A crowd of pa.s.sengers surged around us as the boat poked its nose into the slip. "There was nothing left of this part of the city but a fringe of wharves, after the fire." I bit the last word in two, for it was evident the expression was getting on his nerves. I was thankful that the clanging chains of the descending gang plank and the tramp of many feet made further conversation impossible.

"Hurry," he urged, "there's the Exposition car." We were in front of the Ferry Building and the crowd was jostling us in every direction.

"You surely are not going to the Exposition!" I exclaimed in mock surprise.

"Of course I am. Where else should we go?"

"But, my dear Antiquary, those buildings are only a few months old!"

He laughed good naturedly. "It ought to suit you Westerners, anyway," he retaliated. Then taking my arm, "Let us hurry! Look, the car is starting!"

"I am going to take the one behind," I announced. "There must be something old in San Francisco and I am going to find it."

"You'll have a long hunt," rejoined the skeptic, and with his eyes still on the tail of the disappearing Exposition car, he reluctantly followed me.

"Lots of strangers in San Francisco for the Fair," he remarked, as from the car window he watched the big turban of a Hindoo bobbing among the crowd on the sidewalk; then his eyes wandered to a j.a.panese arrayed in a new suit of American clothes and finally rested on a bright yellow lei wound about the hat of a swarthy Hawaiian. I smiled as I nodded to the j.a.panese who had worked in my kitchen for three years, and recognized in the dusky Hawaiian one of the regular singers in a popular cafe.

The train had now left commercial San Francis...o...b..hind and was climbing the hills to where the nature loving citizens had perched their houses in order to obtain a better view of the bay. We abandoned the car and following an upward path, finally stood on the lower shoulder of Twin Peaks. Tired from our exertions we sank upon the soft gra.s.s. The hills had put on their festival attire, catching up their emerald gowns with bunches of golden poppies and veiling their shoulders in filmy scarfs of blue lupins. The air was filled with Spring and the delicate blush of an apple-tree told of the approach of Summer. Below, the city, noisy and bustling a few moments ago, now lay hushed to quiet by the distance and beyond, the sun-flecked waters of the bay stretched to a girdle of verdant hills, up whose sides the houses of the towns were scrambling.

To the left, resting on the top of Mt. Tamalpais, could be seen the "sleeping maiden" who for centuries had awaited the awakening kiss of her Indian lover.

"What a glorious play-ground for San Francisco." His voice rang with enthusiasm. "Look at the ferryboats plowing up the bay in every direction. A man could escape from the factory grime on the water front and in an hour be asleep under a tree on a gra.s.sy hillside."

"It is a splendid country to tramp through, but if a man wants to sleep, why not spend less time and money by selecting a nearer place? There are plenty of trees and gra.s.sy mounds in the Presidio and Golden Gate Park."

His eyes followed mine to the green patch edging the entrance to the bay and then ran along the tree-lined avenue to the parked section extending almost from the center of the city to the Pacific Ocean. Suddenly he stood up and took his field gla.s.ses from his pocket.

"There's a granite cross just visible above the trees in Golden Gate Park." He focused his gla.s.ses for a better view. "It's quite elaborate in design and seems to be raised on a hill."

He offered me the gla.s.ses but I did not need them. "It's the Prayer-Book Cross and commemorates the first Church of England service held on this Coast by Sir Francis Drake in 1579. I think it is a shame that we haven't also a monument for Cabrillo, the real discoverer, who was here nearly forty years earlier. If Sir Francis hadn't stolen a Spanish ship's chart, he would never have found the Gulf of the Farallones.

Cabrillo sailed along the coast more than half a century before Ma.s.sachusetts Bay was discovered," I added maliciously.

"I had forgotten the old duffer," he smiled back at me. Raising his gla.s.ses again, he scanned the sombre roofs to the right. "There's another monument," he volunteered, "rising out of the heart of the city."

I followed the direction indicated to where the outstretched arms of a white wooden cross were silhouetted against the sky.

"If I were in Europe," he continued, "I should call it a shrine, for the sides of the hill on which it stands are seamed with paths running from the net-work of houses to the foot of the cross."

"It is a shrine at which all San Francisco worships. Wrapped in mystery it stands, for when it was placed there no one knows. It comes to us out of the past--a token left by the Spanish padres. Three times it has fallen into decay, but always loving hands have reached forward to restore it, and as long as San Francisco shall last, a cross will rise from the summit of Lone Mountain."