n island cactus as the place
where the wandering Aztecs should rest and build their city of Mexico.
San Francisco's godparents were but common humanity, traders and
adventurers, later gold-seekers and pot politicians, intelligent, bold,
and for the most part honest; few intending long to remain, few dreaming
of the great city to arise here; few caring how the town should be
made, if one were made at all. When was improvised an alcalde after the
Mexican fashion, and two boards of aldermen were established after the
New York fashion, and the high officials saw that they could now and
then pick up a twenty-five-dollar fee for deeding a fifty vara lot, if
so be they had on hand some fifty varas, they forthwith went to work to
make them by drawing lines in front of the cove and intersecting them at
right angles by lines running up over the hills, giving their own names,
with a sprinkling of the names of bear-flag heroes, not forgetting the
usual Washington and Jackson, leaving in the centre a plaza, the cove
in front to be filled in later. The streets were narrow, dusty in summer
and miry in winter. Spanish-American streets are usually thirty-six
feet wide. Winding trails led from the Presidio to the Mission, and
from Mission and Presidio to the cove. This was the beginning of San
Francisco, which a merciful providence has five times burned, the
original shacks and their successors, the last time thoroughly, giving
the inhabitants the opportunity to build something better.

All this time the matchless bay and inviting shores awaited the coming
of those who should aid in the accomplishment of their high destiny.
Situated on the Pacific relatively as is New York on the Atlantic, the
natural gateway with its unique portal between the old East and the new
West, the only outlet for the drainage of thousands of square miles of
garden lands and grain fields, a harbor in the world's center of highest
development, with no other to speak of within five hundred miles on
either side; dominator of the greatest of oceans, waters more spacious
than those of Rio, airs of purple haze sweeter than those of Italy,
hills islands and shore lines more sublime than any of Greece--all this
time these benefactions of nature have awaited the appreciation and
action of those who for their own benefit and the benefit of the nation
would utilize them. Are they here now, these new city-builders, or must
San Francisco wait for another generation?

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