Welcome, 2020. Well, we’re getting farther and farther away from the Nineteenth Century! A couple of years ago a Facebook friend of mine posted a news item that said that the last know person born in the Nineteenth Century had died. The individual was 117 or so at the time. Gee, it’s sad to think of someone being cut down in the flower of youth like that! Anyway, these are updates I did on a collection of photographs in San Francisco from the website blogspot.com that were taken the second half of the Nineteenth Century. and color-tinted by Bennett Hall.
The Golden Gate and Fort Point in the 1880s:
The San Francisco waterfront beneath Telegraph Hill in 1885 before the Embarcadero Piers were built: Dynamite blasting of Telegraph Hill in the late Nineteenth Century, particularly by the brothers George and Harry Gray for their stone quarry, removed the natural slope of the eastern side of the hill before it was stopped early in the Twentieth Century. You can see the damage the Gray Brothers caused in my picture.
The area that used to be called Meiggs Wharf but is today’s northern waterfront and Fisherman’s Wharf in the 1870s: Alcatraz Island, the Tiburon Peninsula, Angel Island and Sausalito can be seen in both pictures.
Montgomery Street at Sutter looking south toward the old Palace Hotel in the late 1870s:
The waterfront looking down from Telegraph Hill in 1865:
The Vallejo Street Wharf looking toward Telegraph Hill in 1866: Much of this area has been filled in now.
Looking down from Telegraph Hill toward Vallejo Street and Broadway, where most of the ships docked back in 1865:
The wharf near Broadway, the opposite view of the previous photos, looking back toward Telegraph Hill: The picture is dated 1850, which would make it one of the oldest pictures or daguerreotypes of San Francisco known.
San Francisco Film Locations Then & Now 
It is not easy to imagine that my ancestors knew San Francisco like it was in some of these old pictures. They remembered when Sunnyvale was a small town, and Cupertino was not a town at all. Hayward was the place to be, and Richmond was a great place to invest in real estate.
The Montgomery and Sutter “Then” photo has a great shot of my great great grandfather’s cigar store. It was located on the corner of Montgomery, Market, and Post. If you soon in you can see the sign “Gannon’s Cigar Store.” I’ve collected photos of it for years but this is the first time I’ve seen it at that angle. Thanks for sharing!
Wow! Thank you for the great history comment!
” zoom in”!