Martin Luther King, Jr. during a press conference. Photo: New York World-Telegram & Sun Newspaper Photograph Collection, Library of Congress

Although slavery for African Americans may have been largely confined to the South, other forms of blatant racial discrimination were not. In fact, Oregon was the only state in the Union whose 1859 constitution forbade black people to live, work, or own property in the state. It was illegal for black people even to move to Oregon until 1926. California is notorious for its horrible treatment of Chinese people in the 1800s, and, in the early 1900s, California, passed “alien land laws” that barred people who did not meet federal regulations for citizenship from owning property. This essentially meant non-whites, except people of African descent, because they were allowed to naturalize after the Civil War. These alien land laws were targeting Asians and, in particular, the Japanese, even though this was well before WWII.

Lawyer Juichi Soyeda, and Tadao Kamiya, 1913, lobby against the new Alien Land Law. Photo: George Grantham Bain Collection, Library of Congress

The Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s finally forced the entire nation to look at and address the issue of racial discrimination. It began in the southern United States but spread through the entire country. The West Coast, and particularly the San Francisco Bay Area, had its share of protests. Civil rights struggles in other states led to demonstrations in the Bay Area, and people of all colors and backgrounds stood together to demand equality.

March on Washington August 28, 1963. Photo: United States Information Agency

San Francisco Bay Area Supports the Southern Fight

People in the Bay Area supported the southern struggle in many ways. In large numbers, they joined the national 1960 boycott of Woolworth Company for denying the right of African Americans to eat at a lunch counter in North Carolina. In 1963, 2,500 people marched along Post Street in San Francisco to protest the Birmingham, Alabama bombing of four young African Americans girls. In 1965, after state troopers in Selma, Alabama brutally attacked 67 African American marchers during a nonviolent demonstration against voting rights discrimination, San Franciscan flooded the streets around their City Hall and demanded federal intervention for the racial violence in Selma.

Johnson’s lack of intervention in Selma made waves across the country. Photo: Stanley Wolfson, New York World-Telegram & Sun Newspaper Photograph Collection, Library of Congress.

A Civil Rights Fight Hits Home

The Bay Area was also home to racial discrimination in the job market, so San Franciscans led pickets, protests, and sit-ins at Mel’s Drive-In, the Sheraton Place, and the Bank of America in 1963 and 1964. The demonstrations were successful in getting companies to agree to nondiscrimination hiring practices. Some set goals of having a staff composed of 20% of people of color.

MLK to the Bay: Not Everybody Had a Dream

Although many Californian’s were fighting for civil rights, many were still resisting with all their might. The California Fair Housing Act, better known as the Rumford Act, was passed in 1963 . It was intended to eliminate discrimination in housing based on race, color, gender, religious beliefs, or national origin.

KKK members in San Francisco, California July 12, 1964. Photo: U.S. News & World Report Collection at the Library of Congress

Unfortunately, discriminatory housing practices were the norm in California, so even though the Rumford Act passed, Republican legislators had amended the bill to ensure that it did not apply to most forms of private and single family housing. Even with the exclusion of the majority of homes and neighborhoods, the California Real Estate Association immediately sponsored Proposition 14, proposing to amend the Constitution of the State of California to repeal the Rumford Act. They sold it as a property rights issue, and many large conservative groups supported the proposition, including the John Birch Society and the California Republican Assembly.

Afraid of the precedent California would set if Proposition 14 passed, Martin Luther King, Jr. came to San Francisco and spoke about the importance of the Rumford Act and how not having equality in housing practices would negatively affect the whole country. Despite his oratory skills, King’s speech didn’t convince enough Californians. Proposition 14 passed with a 65% majority vote in 1964.

However, Proposition 14 did not set a long-lasting precedent. Soon after, the federal government halted all federal funding for housing in California. In 1967, the California Supreme Court deemed the proposition unconstitutional because it violated the California constitution’s equal protection and due process provisions. This put a stop to California’s legal housing discrimination.

MLK’s Dream Comes True for the Nation

King’s “I Have A Dream Speech” in Washington, 1963. Photo: United States Marine Corps

King’s dream of equality became a reality in the law as he watched President Lyndon Johnson sign the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which outlawed discrimination based on ethnicity, color, gender, or religion. Even though much work remained to enforce the federal mandate in specific state laws and on many fronts, King’s work put the nation on a new course. Racial discrimination was no longer acceptable under federal law.

Lyndon B. Johnson signing the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Photo: Cecil Stoughton, White House Press Office

Today, nearly 50 years after his assassination, King is honored for his work in the fight for racial equality. Martin Luther King, Jr. Day is a federal holiday annually celebrated on the third Monday of January. There are several places in California where you can join the celebrations:

San Francisco: Check the NorcalMLK Foundation website for a list of events in San Francisco that are sponsored by the foundation. The events are free and include a free Caltrain NorCalMLK Celebration Train ticket.

Santa Cruz: Martin Luther King Day of Service entries on the Volunteer Center of Santa Cruz County website lists volunteer opportunities in honor of King in Santa Cruz County.

San Diego: See the Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity website for details about the 36th Annual Dr. Martin Lither King Jr. Parade on Sunday, January 17th, 2:00-5:00 PM on Harbor Drive at the Emercadero.

Today’s Organizations that Promote Diversity

Learn what the National Coalition on School DIversity is doing today to help with the issues of racial isolation and lack of diversity in schools nationwide.

Martin Luther King, Jr.’s wife, Coretta Scott King, created The King Center in Atlanta, Georgia to honor her husband’s legacy and encourage nonviolent problem solving.

The Leadership Conference on Civil Rights is a coalition of more than 200 organizations across the nation that work to ensure rights of all people in the US.

The National Fair Housing Alliance is a group of more than 220 organizations nationwide that are dedicated to ensuring fair housing across the US.

Updated August 9, 2016

Devastation after the earthquake. Photo taken by Arnold Genthe.

The city of San Francisco was destroyed in the spring of 1906 after a violent earthquake shook the city to the ground on Wednesday, April 18. The infamous quake was certainly damaging, but a series of 2,700 degree fires lasting three days after the quake, consumed or multiplied the damage. So overwhelming was the aftermath, many people simply left the city for good. Seventy five thousand of the 400,000 San Franciscans left for nearby cities like Berkeley and Oakland. The remaining population stayed to turn devastation into opportunity.

A view of the damage on Sacramento Street. Photo taken by Arnold Genthe.

The damage was almost incomprehensible. Insurance claims calculated a total loss of $252 million, not including the destruction caused by the earthquake since many policies did not include that type of coverage. In today’s money, this number equates to $6.2 billion and back then, the amount was equal to the federal budget in 1906! Banks weren’t functional for the six weeks following the quake, causing the city business needed to counterbalance the financial damage to come to a screeching halt. Some money was saved, but the banks fire safes could not be accessed until the safes cooled a week later. San Franciscans had a choice to make, sulk or work.

Workers search through destruction for reusable bricks. Photo taken by George Williford Boyce Haley.

Rebuilding a City…Fast and Different

In order to save the city’s place in the nation, the leading officials understood it had to be rebuilt quickly. It was. Citizens were drafted to clear debris from the streets in the days following the quake, making the job more manageable for the professionals who dumped the rubble into Mission Bay. Skilled workers poured into the city – within 4 days there were already 300 plumbers ready to get to work. Building skyrocketed; 500 homes and 300 saloons/dance halls were built within the year. The quake also affected residential architecture in the city, aiding in the transition out of the Victorian architectural styles like Gothic Revival, Italianate, and Stick (1860—early 1900s) and into the Edwardian architectural styles like Arts & Crafts, Shingle, Tudor Revival and Mission Revival.

Example of the Queen Anne style homes in Haight-Ashbury neighborhood. Queen Anne is one style that spanned both Victorian and Edwardian architectural Styles. Photo taken by Urban.

Success

By 1909 a staggering 20,000 buildings had been built in the recovering city! The officials and citizens of San Francisco had pulled off what seemed to be impossible. In just three years time, the city had recovered from a devastating blow. Despite much difficulty, displaced San Franciscans of 1906 rallied together, with the help of aid to pull off a modern miracle.

A view of the rebuilt city from Grant Avenue at Market Street in 1915. Photo credit: Library of Congress.

To showcase their accomplishments, San Francisco hosted the Portola Festival in 1909 and the larger Panama-Pacific International Exposition in 1915. The Portola Festival boasted five days of parades, spectacular city lighting, a crowded auto race, warships from all over the world and gained the attention of one million attendees. The Exposition of 1915 opened in February and lasted the remainder of the year. The nineteen million people who attended the event proved that San Francisco had risen from the ashes to an international level of grandeur.

Extravagant lighting system at 1915 exposition. Photo credit: Project Gutenberg Archives.

A remastered depiction of the exhibit palaces at the Panama-Pacific International Exposition of 1915. Photo originally published by Pacific Novelty Co.

Earthquake shack saved and re-purposed at San Francisco Zoo. Photo by Mark Hogan.

In 1906, the earth jolted beneath the feet of the 400,000 people of San Francisco, California. An entire cityscape of buildings, homes and parks were completely disrupted by the chaotic quake on April 18. Possibly even more destruction was caused by the three day fires that followed. 250,000 residents were left as homeless refugees struggling to survive.

Refugees rush to leave San Francisco after the earthquake. Photo by George Williford Boyce Haley in 1906.

Where to Sleep?

Thousands of homeless families were sheltered quickly in 11 large campsites organized by the United States Army, the San Francisco Relief Corporation and San Francisco Parks Commission. Washington Square, Dolores Park, Golden Gate Park and the Presidio were a few of the sites where about 20,000 people sought refuge in military issued tents. The tents were given numbers, much like a home address, and camps were scattered with intersection directories. As winter approached, 5,500 wooden “cottages” were constructed by the Army and its local relief collaborators.

The early stages of housing aid at Golden Gate Park. Photo courtesy the Committee Papers of the Senate Committee on Printing of the 60th Congress.

The Far From Cozy Cottages

These cottages were smaller than most of our living rooms. Type A was 140 square feet, and Type B was square 252 feet. They were one room, and had no kitchen or bathroom. Space was tight, but the 16,000 tenants who had the opportunity to call one home, had basic shelter thanks to the walls and floors made of redwood and fir. Tenants paid $2 a month toward the final price of $50.

When the camps started closing in summer of 1907, tenants were encouraged to purchase the houses and were pretty much given the homes so long as they promised to move the structure off the original site. Many people willingly complied and hauled them off to private lots around the city, often combining two or three together to make a larger home.

The Cottages Make A Comeback
Jane F. Cryan – deemed the “shack activist” brought preservation of the shacks into the foreground of public interest in the 1980s, with the story of her “little red house” dwarfed by large modern structures. It is no longer red but can be seen here in the Sunset District. After that, the shacks made a nostalgic comeback among the hearts of San Franciscans. They are still being renovated, preserved, and increasing in property value! Today, the $50 shack of 1906 is sold for around $800,000!

Quake shack at 20 Newman Street in San Francisco. Photo byLeigh-Anne Lehrman.

Quake shack at 164 Bocana Street in San Francisco. Photo by Leigh-Anne Lehrman.

Quake shack at 43 Carver Street in San Francisco. Photo by Leigh-Anne Lehrman.

Northeast view of Alcatraz Island, 2013. Photo by William Warby.

When many people think of Alcatraz, visions of a high security prison come to mind. For most of us, it’s that island in the shadow of the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco Bay, where high profile bank robbers and notorious Mafioso criminals were sent during the mid-20th century. Most people don’t associate Alcatraz with the arguably more important happenings once the Alcatraz Federal Penitentiary closed in 1963, and the island became surplus government land.

Clarence Carnes, Sam Shockley, and Miran Thompson, all tried to escape from Alcatraz Federal Penitentiary in 1946. Photo in the Public Domain.

The Trail to Alcatraz

For Native Americans, the 22 acre rock holds very different visions. Ones of resistance and struggle for self determination and ethnic pride. Over 40 years ago, Alcatraz gave birth to the Red Power movement; one of the most effective acts of Native American resistance in the twentieth century.

The United States termination polices of the 1940s – 1960s attempted to get Native Americans off Indian reservations and assimilated into US culture. It caused many Native Americans to move to the city where the promised assistance was not given. Many ended up poor and isolated from their culture and identity.

In the 1960s, Native Americans unified their grievances against a long history of broken promises by the US Government in the form of the Red Power Movement. The Movement, full of protests and demonstrations, took place alongside many changing ideologies of the Civil Rights Era. These changes, inspired by national movements surrounding race and war from the 1950s to the 1970s, provided Native Americans with inspiration, motivation and guidance to produce effective demonstrations of their own.

“We Hold The Rock!”

The Native American resistance movement gained traction around three attempts to occupy Alcatraz between 1964 and 1969. In the first two attempts, the occupants quickly proclaimed their rights to reclaim possession of the island – after it was declared surplus by the U.S. in 1964. Both times, the Coast Guard hurriedly removed the protesters from the island. Stories of the two occupations were published by the media, and provided a foundation of public interest for their cause.

On October 9, 1969, the cultural center of the United Bay Area Council of American Indian Affairs, was suspiciously destroyed by fire. The possibility of hate crime sparked Richard Oakes, the group’s undeclared spokesperson, to begin collaborating and planning for a third occupation of Alcatraz. On November 20th, 1969, Oakes and 78 Native Americans boarded the island.

By the National Park Service. Wikipedia.

Not long after the start of this third occupation, Oakes wrote a letter known as the Alcatraz Proclamation to the San Francisco Department of the Interior. “We are on Alcatraz Island to make known to the world that we have a right to use our land for our own benefit,” he said. The group of Native Americans claimed the island as their own according to the Fort Laramie Treaty of 1868 which gave Indians the right to acquire land declared surplus, abandoned, or retired by the federal government. They proposed to purchase the land for “twenty four dollars in glass beads and red cloth.” The “offer of $1.24 per acre [was] greater than the $0.47 per acre the white men [were then] paying California Indians for their lands,” said Oakes. The proclamation also presented their desire to construct a number of cultural institutions on the newly acquired land including: a Center for Native American Studies, an American Indian Spiritual Center, an Indian Center of Ecology, and a Great Indian Training School. This letter gained more media coverage which opened more opportunities for the Movement.

The occupation lasted a duration of 19 months and peacefully came to an end when the few remaining occupants were escorted off the island by the Coast Guard, FBI and other U.S officials. During its time on the island, the group proved its perseverance through two Coast Guard blockades and the government’s termination of water and electricity supply to the island.

The End of Termination

The occupation served to make the mainstream US public aware of the Native American termination policies and their terrible outcomes for Native Americans. The desire to rectify past injustices was helped by celebrities like Jane Fonda, Dick Gregory and Marlon Brando, all of whom visited the island. Creedance Clearwater Revival also donated $15,000 which was used to buy a boat (the Clearwater) to transport the protestors.
The groundswell of support in fairly short order motivated the government to make drastic changes in its policies. President Nixon renounced the governments previous termination policies and introduced the notion of “self-determination without termination.” Congress passed 52 pieces of legislation to support Native Americans self-determination from 1970 to 1971.

Dancer at the Indigenous Peoples’ Day sunrise gathering and ceremony, November 22, 2012. Photo by Angelina Sevin.

Ceremonial Remembrance

Every year on Thanksgiving Day since 1975, the legacy of the Native American occupation of Alcatraz is remembered by hundreds of people through the “Indigenous Peoples Sunrise Ceremony, also known as Un-Thanksgiving Day, which is celebrated on the island. The ceremony honors the achievements of the leaders of the Red Power Movement as well as the still continuing struggle to defend the ways of life and sacred places of Native Americans.

This is exactly the feeling that the temple builders were going for. The Pulgas Water Temple was designed to be a grandiose monument to the wide-ranging achievements culminating in the Hetch Hetchy water system. It marks the end of the 167-mile Hetch Hetchy aqueduct. The aqueduct moves water from the majestic peaks of Yosemite National Park in the high Sierra Nevada mountain range across the parched Central Valley of California to the San Francisco Bay Area. The system involves more than 60 miles of tunnels and several reservoirs and pump stations.

The full inscription on the Pulgas Water Temple reads “I give waters in the wilderness and rivers in the desert, to give drink to my people.” Isaiah 43:20. Photo: Julia Gaudinski/Mobile Ranger

The temple is at the southern edge of the Upper Crystal Springs Reservoir, which is one of a system of four reservoirs built between 1865 and 1888 by the Spring Valley Water Company to provide water for San Francisco. It straddles the spot where waters from the Tuolumne River watershed mix with local water within the San Francisco and Peninsula watersheds.

Century-long Controversy over Moving Water to San Francisco

Acquiring the necessary land, capital, and permits for the Hetch Hetchy water system required not only impressive feats of structural engineering but also feats of political maneuvering and deft public relations. The story begins in the 1880s when San Francisco’s leaders realized they needed more water than their local watersheds could provide.

Bringing water west from the Sierra was an idea that had started as early as the 1860s when a former Spring Valley Water Company employee decided to try to bring Sierra water to both the Central Valley and the Nevada desert for irrigation. Although he had little success, the idea took root of moving water across huge distances, not to mention challenging geography.

In 1882, getting water to San Francisco from the Tuolumne River watershed was seen as a real possibility, so numerous investigations and several studies were conducted. In 1900, the United States Geological Survey (USGS) recommended the Hetch Hetchy Valley, at the headwaters of the Tuolumne River, as the best source for San Francisco’s water supply. It was during this time, in 1890, that Congress established Yosemite National Park, which includes the Hetch Hetchy Valley.

View across Hetch Hetchy Valley, early 1900s, before the O’Shaughnessy Dam was built. Photo: Isaiah West Taber, Sierra Club Bulletin, Vol. VI, No. 4, January 1908.

James Phelan, then the mayor of San Francisco, was so convinced that Tuolumne water was essential that he and city engineers privately funded surveys and filed for water rights as private citizens. From past experience with the Spring Valley Water Company, they were afraid that if what San Francisco was up to became known, private investors would move in for a profiteering land grab.

San Francisco’s first attempt to secure a permit from the US Department of Interior to develop Hetch Hetchy, in 1903, was denied by E. A. Hitchcock, who was then Secretary of the Interior. Major issues concerned whether he had the authority to approve such a permit and the fact that Hetch Hetchy was in a national park.

The next 10 years were a decade of fierce political maneuvering and hardball plays by the City of San Francisco, which wanted to develop Hetch Hetchy, as well as other water companies that wanted to sell San Francisco a different water system (getting water from other Sierra watersheds: the American and Consumnes), irrigation districts in the Toulomne watershed that also wanted rights to the water, and the legendary John Muir and the Sierra Club who wanted to save Hetch Hetchy Valley from being dammed.

The city applied for another development permit in 1905 and was again turned down. In early 1906, the city supervisors voted to abandon the Hetch Hetchy project. But the 1906 earthquake quickly changed their minds. The quake caused fires that burned for days, and the failure of the water system to provide enough water to fight the fires became fuel to reignite the city’s commitment to secure water rights to Hetch Hetchy.

In 1907, the city began courting the latest Secretary of Interior, James R. Garfield. The Sierra Club, which formed in 1892, saw what the city was trying to do and began a serious campaign to save Hetch Hetchy Valley. When the city applied for a permit again in 1908, Garfield approved it but only conditionally. He stipulated that Lake Eleanor, a much smaller water source, had to be developed first, before they could develop Hetch Hetchy Valley, the real prize.

Map of the Hetch Hetchy aqueduct, which began to deliver water 167 miles west to San Francisco in 1934. Map:  Shannon1

In 1910, San Francisco began development of Lake Eleanor but insisted that it needed to develop Hetch Hetchy at the same time. In response, the opposition successfully lobbied the new Secretary of the Interior, Richard A. Ballinger, to visit Hetch Hetchy Valley himself and reopen the issue. Ballinger forced the city to show cause why they truly needed to develop Hetch Hetchy Valley and to again investigate alternatives. He also created a special Board of Army Engineers to investigate the issue.

In 1911, Ballinger resigned due to poor health. In 1912, the next Secretary of the Interior, Walter L. Fisher, convened more hearings. In 1913, the Board of Army Engineers recommended approving the project. Fisher then backpedaled by deciding that he did not have the regulatory authority to grant such a permit after all and declared that it would require an act of Congress.

Final approval for the project came down to the 1913 Raker Act. Testimony in the Senate became national in scope, with letters and newspapers from coast to coast weighing in on the issue. The act passed on December 6, 1913, probably because on December 2, William Randolph Hearst created a 16-page Washington edition of the San Francisco Examiner in support of its passage and put it on every Senator’s desk. After winning, the city started work on damming Hetch Hetchy within four months.

Pulgas Water Temple: Grand Finale to an Epic Battle

Twenty years later, the first rush of water from Hetch Hetchy Reservoir came through the Pulgas Water Temple. The assembled dignitaries proclaimed the achievement and reminded San Franciscans how much safer the city was from future earthquake fires with this new reliable water supply. It turns out the dignitaries were assembled around only a temporary temple that was an exact replica of the Sunol Water Temple built in 1910.

Dignitaries surround the temporary temple to celebrate water from the Hetch Hetchy water system coming to San Francisco, October 28, 1934. No one seems to know exactly what happened to this temporary structure. Photo: Onsite interpretive sign, Julia Gaudinski/Mobile Ranger

The permanent temple was built in 1938 and, like the Sunol temple, was designed in the Beaux Arts style. The idea for both temples was to reflect the architecture of ancient Greeks and Romans whose engineering inspired the new water systems. For decades, the Hetch Hetchy water actually went through the Pulgas Water Temple. Stories abound of people jumping down into the temple and riding the waters through the tunnel into the reservoir. Whether these tales are true or urban legend is unclear, but in 2004, such a feat became impossible when the main water water flow was diverted to a treatment plant. Now, water that flows through the temple is just a small, symbolic amount and clearly flows to pipes.

The Sunol Water Temple. The first Pulgas Water Temple was an exact replica. Photo: Courtesy of Ike9898

Some of the details on the ornate Beaux Arts style of the Pulgas Water Temple. Photo: Julia Gaudinski/Mobile Ranger

The Fight Isn’t Over Yet

The Sierra Club has never forgotten Hecth Hetchy Valley. Beginning with a 1955 movie called Two Yosemites, they portray the Hetch Hetchy water system as a mistake. That opinion has gained a lot of traction since 1970 when the Sierra Club first began calling for O’Shaughnessy Dam, the dam that impounds Hetch Hetchy Valley, to be removed and the valley to be restored.

In 1999, the organization called Restore Hetch Hetchy was formed by a consortium of environmental groups, including the Sierra Club, to intensify lobbying for that goal. They have been so successful that, in 2012, San Francisco residents were asked to vote on Proposition F, which would have required the the City of San Francisco to evaluate how to drain and restore the Hetch Hetchy Valley and to identify replacement water and power sources. However, only 23% voted in favor, so that initiative failed.

Restore Hetch Hetchy advocates contend that numerous studies have shown the idea is feasible. They are regrouping and plan to continue the nearly 100-year fight. You can watch their short Restore Hetch Hetchy video on YouTube.

Restore Hetch Hetchy logo

International Orange, the color chosen for the Golden Gate Bridge, is a perfect complement to the warm tones of the surrounding hills of Marin. Photo courtesy of Molly Lautamo.

When driving across the Golden Gate Bridge how often have you asked yourself “Why is the Golden Gate orange?” Or, “Why is an orange bridge called the “Golden Gate”? The answer lies in Istanbul and in an architect named Irving Morrow.

The Golden Gate Is Not a Bridge, It’s a Strait

The Golden Gate Bridge is named after the entrance to San Francisco Bay from the Pacific Ocean, which is a narrow passage of water connecting two large areas of water, otherwise known as a strait. This stretch of water was named “Chrysopylae” or Golden Gate in 1846 by Army Captain John C. Fremont because it reminded him of a strait in an Istanbul harbor called Chrysoceras, or Golden Horn. When the construction of the bridge began in 1933, it took on the name of the strait.

The most recognizable strait in the world: the Golden Gate of San Francisco, August 2006. Photo courtesy of NASA.

Many people were concerned that a bridge spanning the wide Golden Gate Strait would mar the beauty of the bay.  Irving Morrow, the project’s consulting architect who designed the lighting and art-deco styling of the bridge, took the people’s concerns seriously and thought long and hard about the right color for the 4,200 feet of suspended steel.

But what color would add, not detract, beauty to the bay and do justice to such an impressive architectural feat?

The Chosen Color: International Orange

Several colors were considered for the Golden Gate Bridge. Among them were black (Morrow thought it would diminish the bridge’s size), silver (more well-suited for a dirigible), gray (too drab for this marvel of engineering), and the worst by far … black and yellow stripes (the U.S. Navy’s preference for visibility). Morrow knew that none of these options would do justice to the world’s longest suspension bridge.

In order to be visible to ships, the U.S. Navy wanted the Golden Gate Bridge covered in yellow and black stripes! Photo courtesy of Official U.S. Navy Page. (October 13, 2011)

Finally, the perfect color presented itself when Morrow noticed one of the bridge’s painters applying an orangish primer to one of the towers. The vermilion orange went well with the surrounding Marin hills and was a stark contrast to the gray fog that enveloped the bridge almost daily. The community echoed Morrow’s preference as well. As the orange primer covered more of the bridge, local citizens wrote eloquent letters to Morrow, emphasizing the area’s natural beauty and pleading that the final coat of paint match that of the undercoat. Morrow prepared a 29-page report, “The Report on Color and Lighting,” to convince the bridge’s Board of Directors to paint the bridge “International Orange.”

His report underscores the natural beauty of the area and thus the importance of choosing exactly the right color for the bridge:

“The Golden Gate [Strait] is a scenic feature which demands all possible respect because of (a) its intrinsic beauty; (b) its great renown; and (c) its strong long-standing sentimental attachment in the minds of inhabitants of the San Francisco Bay region. Many people, sincerely believing that a bridge must of necessity mar this landscape, opposed bridging the Golden Gate for no other reason. Poorly chosen color may actually create disharmony between the structure and the site.”

Luckily, Morrow succeeded in winning support for his daring color choice. While this stunning art deco suspension bridge is no longer the world’s longest, it now holds the title of the world’s most photographed. This is not hard to believe if you’ve ever found yourself catching your breath at the sight of the bridge peeking out above a thick layer of fog, the bold orange brush strokes of color in bright contrast to the cold, gray sky.

Imagine how hard it would be to see the Golden Gate Bridge in the fog if it were gray (the second color choice) and not orange! Photo courtesy of Frank Kovalcheck. (May 31, 2010)

How to Maintain 10 Million Square Feet of Paint

If you grew up in California, you’ve probably heard that the Golden Gate Bridge is repainted from end-to-end every year. Well, this mind boggling rumor is nothing more than just that — a rumor. In an article on NPR superintendent Rocky Dellaroccato joked, “Yeah, you start at one end, and when you get to the other end, you retire.” We are talking about 10 million square feet of steel after all! The paint does require routine touch-ups on a continual basis by a team of 34 painters and 16 ironworkers. (The ironworkers move along with the painting crew, removing pieces of steel to make painting possible and replacing parts as needed.) These touch-ups require 5,000 to 10,000 gallons of International Orange every year.

Touch-ups on the Golden Gate Bridge require 5,000 to 10,000 gallons of International Orange paint every year. Photo courtesy of Anita Dikinme. (Dec 19, 2005)

How To Get Your Hands on a Can of International Orange

There is enough International Orange paint for everyone if you’re as smitten with the color as the rest of the world. So many people have asked for a paint sample over the years that it can now be found on the Highway and Transportation District’s website. Just give your local paint store these instructions: CMYK colors are: C= Cyan: 0%, M =Magenta: 69%, Y =Yellow: 100%, K = Black: 6%.

Now the next time you’re driving across the famous Golden Gate Bridge, you can impress your passengers by telling them about the strait in Istanbul and how the color was chosen because an architect and local citizens liked the orange hue of the bridge’s primer. Oh and don’t forget to mention that we should all be grateful to Irving Morrow for ensuring the bridge did not end up covered in black and yellow stripes!

San Francisco Bay from Space, August 2012. Image by NASA.

San Francisco today is the cultural, commercial, and financial center of Northern California, but in 1769 to a crew of weary, scurvy-ridden Spaniards who had been traversing the west coast wilderness for months, discovering the San Francisco Bay only brought disappointment. This giant bay was clearly not the Monterey Bay that King Carlos III of Spain had sent them to find.

Statue of Gaspar de Portolà, by the sculptor Josep Maria Subirachs. Photo by Bob n’ Renee.

Don Gaspar de Portolá, governor of the Californias, volunteered to lead the expedition assigned to travel north from Baja California to the fabled Monterey Bay. Portolá was expected to find this bay from descriptions found in the written records by the explorer Sebastián Vizcaíno in 1602. This was to be the first on-land exploration of California by Europeans, and the men would end up traveling over 1,000 miles through unchartered terrain.

It was a high stakes mission as King Carlos and a few other European emperors were beginning to realize the importance of the Pacific Coast for maritime trade. Spain needed to establish missions and colonies along this coastline and at Monterey Bay while they still had the chance. The long journey was split into two legs: first from Baja California to San Diego and then from San Diego to Monterey.

The exploration had two crews on ships and two hardy groups of men that rode on horseback and sometimes marched on foot, all the way from Baja to Palo Alto. Both on land and sea, the first stretch of the voyage from Baja to San Diego killed many of the crew, but Portolá decided to push on with his remaining 63 men and 200 hundred horses and mules to Monterey.

The Discovery of the Wrong Bay

After setting foot in Monterey Bay and deciding this could not be the same grand bay described in Vizcaíno’s journals, the expedition marched farther north along the coast. They reached what is now the city of Pacifica on an autumn day in 1769 and decided to rest for a few days while sergeant José Ortega and his scouts went further northward to determine if they had somehow passed Monterey Bay. (They had, by a long shot.) The men, or in Portolá’s words, “skeletons who had been spared by scurvy, hunger, and thirst,” were resting in camp in what is now the city of Pacifica in San Mateo County.

Monterey Bay, California. Painting by Albert Bierstadt.

Ortega and his men returned with promising news of a ship anchored in a large bay to the north. The news of the ship had been gleaned from a conversation, all in sign language, with some of that area’s native people. Even though Ortega could have easily misinterpreted the sign language, Portolá was so excited by the idea that maybe, just maybe, a ship from his expedition was up ahead, full of supplies for his bedraggled men, that he decided to push forward.

Father Juan Crespi was designated chaplain and diarist for the expedition and it is from his journals that we know the bay Ortega had seen was San Francisco Bay. On November 2, 1769 Crespi wrote of “an immense arm of the sea or an estuary which penetrated into the land as far as the eye could reach … [and] beautiful plains … thickly populated with heathen villages.”

San Francisco Bay, California. Painting by Albert Bierstadt (1871-1873).

Crespi’s journal entry described the San Francisco Bay, a much larger discovery than Monterey, but the weary crew only knew one thing: this bay did not match the descriptions in Vizcaíno’s journals. Still, the potential of a ship pushed them onward.

El Palo Alto: History’s Most Famous “Tall Stick”

The march continued on for several days until reaching what is now the city of Palo Alto. They set up camp at San Francisquito Creek beneath a tall redwood tree, now known as El Palo Alto (tall stick in Spanish). This redwood (estimated to be over 1,000 years old) is the oldest living California Historical Landmark and still stands today with a plaque at its base, commemorating the first Europeans who (albeit unknowingly) set foot on the shores of the San Francisco Bay. The city of Palo Alto was named after this tree and Stanford University chose to use the tree as the center of their seal.

El Palo Alto, circa 1910. At the time the tree canopy was in relatively poor health due to the soot from coal powered trains.

El Palo Alto in 2004. Iron truss railway bridge goes beside it over San Francisquito Creek. Photo by Jawed Karem.

Accepting Defeat

As most of the men rested, a few scouts were sent to further explore the area to the north, search for the ship, and confirm whether or not the large estuary was Monterey Bay. After four days the scouts returned with bad news: there was no ship; this was not the bay they sought. Portolá finally accepted defeat and turned his men back to San Diego. They carefully retraced their steps along the coast.

Fortunately, Portolá made it home alive to notify King Carlos of the “bad” news. It eventually became clear though that his discovery of San Francisco Bay greatly overshadowed his failure to find Monterey Bay. But how had Portolá and his men completely missed Monterey Bay and how had ships sailed past San Francisco Bay for 200 years without anyone realizing this valuable discovery?

Monterey Bay from Space. Image by NASA.

Mission Impossible

Portolá and his men had been sent on a nearly impossible mission: to find Monterey Bay on foot with only a written description of its shape. When approaching the bay on a ship, the shape described in Vizcaíno’s notes is clear but when you look at the bay from land, it doesn’t look like a bay at all. It appears to be an open expanse of water without any safe shelter for ships to lay anchor.

The San Francisco Bay had been overlooked for two centuries because of its infamous and persistent layer of fog but also because of the contours of the land. When you sail out of San Francisco Bay, the land appears to close behind you, forming what looks like a continuous stretch of land. The addition of fog, obscuring sailors’ view, would make it near impossible by ship to see the opening to this massive bay.