[mgstarr]

[freedumb2003]

I have been to that very spot and all around there.

Too damn bad SF is loaded with San Fransiscans. They have taken a paradise and turned into a hell-hole filled with only attack panhandlers and the extremely rich (who never actually set foot in their own city).

[skeeter]

Cool place, and not very heavily visited.

BTW more important to the union than Sierra Nevada gold were the mercury deposits in New Almaden 50 miles south of the city. The mineral was used in percussion caps and the south bay had one of the largest deposit in the world at the time.

I read once that this was the main reason Lincoln pressed so hard to have California join the union.

[Joe 6-pack]

There's some very good early SF history to be found in William Sherman's Memoirs. He had been stationed there in the late 1840's and early 1850's and witnessed the early gold rush and blossoming of the city.