City Hall
Postcards on this page show San Francisco's old City Hall and Hall of Records
before and after the 1906 earthquake, as well as the current City Hall.
City Hall gives more information about the history of the buildiings.
These cards show a City Hall image © 6/02/1902 by Goggle & Weidner.
It looks northeast from Market/Larkin.
The Hopkins Mansion on Nob Hill is on the horizon just left of the dome.
- Goeggel & Weidner 9, postmarked SF 8/17/1902, just months after the photo © date.
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Goeggel & Weidner 22, a b+w embossed card using the same image
but without the American flag flying from the tower near the Hall of Records.
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Behrendt 41 uses the same image without Weidner credit.
The large signs at lower right in Behrendt's card are blanked out in Weidner's.
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Mitchell 54, b+w private mailing card postmarked SF 7/09/1904.
The signs at lower right match the signs in Behrendt, but the card shows no pedestrians.
The Hall of Records was just east of City Hall, at the corner of McAllister/City Hall Ave..
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Britton & Rey 476, postmarked SF 12/30/1904,
looks west with City Hall Avenue on the left and McAllister on the right.
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Britton & Rey 637 "Evening View" is the same image (same pedestrian positions)
but with nighttime coloring and electric lighting outlining the dome.
- Souvenir Post Card 4631, pre-quake photo with added post-quake caption.
- Souvenir 151 shows a glimpse of the passageway connecting the Hall of Records to City Hall.
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Unknown publisher, cyan.
At right edge: the Supreme Court building at northwest corner McAllister/Larkin.
These views look north from Market St. to City Hall Square and the Lick Monument, with City Hall just beyond.
- Weidner 122, postmarked 3/06/1906, about a month before the quake
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The long handwritten note on Weidner 123 describes the beautiful pre-quake illumination of the dome
(see Britton & Rey 637 above) and complains about the demolition of the earthquake-damaged City Hall.
- Weidner 123 is a later variant with divided back and added post-quake caption.
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Gruber, printed on unusually heavy stock,
has a Private Mailing Card undivided back but its caption implies that it must be post-quake.
These b+w cards were published very soon after the earthquake/fire.
Color cards showing earthquake damage became available only months later.
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A.H. looks east on Fulton from just west of Larkin on earthquake day 4/18/1906,
after the earthquake but before the fire reached City Hall (8pm).
The fire destroyed the houses shown here.
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Unknown publisher, postmarked Oakland 5/07/1906 (less than three weeks after the event):
"Destruction greater than newspapers describe."
The image looks north up Larkin from Grove.
One of the two towers above the Larkin entrance did not survive the quake.
- Rieder-Cardinell, postmarked SF 6/26/1906.
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Kropp 2232, postmarked SF 9/01/1906, looks south on Larkin from just north of McAllister.
The unburned billboards at left imply that the image must predate the fire reaching City Hall.
Before the quake, second and third floor colonades below the dome
looked like tiers of a wedding cake;
here a few columns below the the north side of the dome survive.
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Capper caption "One hour after the Earthquake" implies pre-fire.
The divided back dates the card to 1907 or later.
- Weidner 244 shows the Larkin street entrance with rubble from the fallen tower.
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Weidner 237 includes neat piles of pipe at right but purports to show the fire in progress
on day 2 (Thursday 4/19/1906).
- Weidner 202 looks north up Larkin from Grove, showing the street cleared and orderly piles of pipe.
The new City Hall at Van Ness/McAllister/Polk/Grove opened in 1915.
Steve's SF postcard pages:
