The
city of St. Francis lost no character or importance during that first
decade in which California matured and stabilized. By 1854, the roving
politicians of the state fixed on Sacramento for the capital, but San
Francisco, on her lovely, westward-looking Bay, was not distressed. For
she was fixed forever in the memories of the Argonauts; one way or
another, she had been welcoming host to all who came. The tall clippers
had dropped anchor in that harbor after the double of the Cape, the
calms below the Line, the fogs. To her had come the steamers from the
Isthmus, cram-packed with adventurers straining their eyes for a first
sight of the land from which they expected so much. Down the rivers
from the mines, launches and schooners had brought to her the veterans
of the overland and the Gila, dust in their wallets, thirst in their
throats, and filled with a consuming passion for the gayety and
companionship of a city. Everyone had memories of San Francisco—she
was as much a legend as the gold rush itself—a place long desired, a
merry, heart-free place, a loud, bawdy place, a place which had become
home to many and hell to some.
Her early glories and iniquities were now safely laid away in the lavender of the Annals—the
fires, the mud, the rogues who had walked the streets, the fever of
speculation. The Vigilance Committees had stacked arms and
retired—their work was done, at any rate for the moment. Financial
ruin had come, had been endured, and prosperity had returned—a milder,
less exuberant prosperity, but much more real and less often seen as
the adornment of flamboyant rascals. The city stood on the threshold of
greatness, as premier port and financial center of the Pacific Coast
for many years to come.
