California Street Hill
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These pre-quake cards look west up California Street to Nob Hill and show no evidence of Fairmont Hotel construction (begun 1903).
- Detroit 5862, private mailing card postmarked SF 7/02/1902, looks toward Stockton from just above Dupont, with Salina Place just past the cable car. The same sender sent another Detroit 5862 a few months later (see Set: Bliss). The image is from a photo © 1901 by Detroit Photographic Co.
- Goeggel & Weidner 54, ca. 1902-1903.
- Weidner 118, postmarked 12/13/1904, the same image in color. The photo is presumably taken from the Kohl Building (built 1901).
- Mitchell 293 must be taken from the Merchants Exchange (built 1904), so it likely dates from 1904.
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The Fairmont Hotel was in the final stages of construction when the 1906 earthquake/fire struck. These images show the Fairmont but are pre-quake (no Sing Fat or Sing Chong). Fairmont Hotel shows the earthquake/fire damage and the reconstructed Fairmont.
- Novelty Import 3.
- Behrendt 15, postmarked SF 11/09/1908.
- Weidner 161, postmarked SF 8/20/1907, with added post-quake caption "Everything destroyed by earthquake and fire Apr. 18. 1906."
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Post-quake, the Hopkins Art Institute at California/Powell is gone and the new pagoda-towered Sing Fat and Sing Chong buildings are at California/Grant.
- Souvenir 138, postmarked 7/06/1914.
- Unknown publisher 390, P.P.I.E. seal on front, looking west from Battery. At Montgomery, the Merchants Exchange (14 stories) is at left and the Kohl Building (11 stories) is at right.
- Piltz 34, much later linen era card showing the Mark Hopkins Hotel (completed 1926).
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These cards look east from above Grant, showing cable cars on California and the Sing Fat / Sing Chong buildings. A Bay Bridge tower peeks out in the Piltz and Smith News cards.
- Mitchell 1779, postmarked 8/20/1910.
- Piltz 110, postmarked 4/30/1947.
- Smith News 6.
Steve's SF postcard pages:
