The San Francisco Call. Newspaper, January 2, 1898, Page 20

THE SAN FRANCISCO CALL, SUNDAY, JANUARY 2, 1898. REASONS WHY GEORGE VANDERBILT ABANDONED BILTMORE. Royal Way in Which the $10,000,000 Estate Was Run. ACHELOR GEORGE VANDER- BILT, millionaire grandson of the commodore, and one of the greatest matrimonial catches in the country, has left his baro- nial estate, Biltmore, in North Carolina, and has gone off to India to shoot tigers and kill time till the con- tractors finish mending the drinking water supply of his magnificent es- tablishment. It has cost this scion of the Vanderbilts at least $10,000,000 to develop this colossal estate up to his ideas of what a home should be, and now the owner is going to take a rest till the leaks in the Biltmore pipes are patched. Most people have only a befogged idea of Biltmore. They know that it is located somewhere in the Blue Ridge Mountains, and that George Vander= bilt is reputed to have spent a fortune on it, but there their knowledge ends. But such people as inese have never seen Biltmore. They have never stood on the rampedouce at Biltmore' House and watched the sun come up over the peaks of the Blue Ridge Mountains un- til it seemed to set the whole dome of the sky on fire. They have never at evening studied the wonderful changes in the atmosphere as the sun sinks, brilliantly coloring every cloud to a bright copper hue, which changes gradually through every warm shade, red and pink and green, until at last only the gray of night is left. It was these beauties of the North Carolina mountains that first attracted the attention of George Vanderbilt. It is related that the first time he came to Asheville, which town nearest to his estate, it was rain- ing, and he was so disgusted with the | general appearance of things that he ordered his special car to be ready to take him away the following morn- ing. Fortunately for Asheville and the fu- ture of Biltmore, the weather cleared during the night, and the next morn- ing George Vanderbilt, rising early, was treated to the sight of one of those glorious sunrises. He countermanded the order with regard to his car and concluded to stay the day out at least. Standing on the piazza of the Bat- tery Park Hotel, he looked away to the north and saw the peak of the Roan the pretty little | e — | —————— ——— —T> ~ iap BILTMORE HOUSE, THE HONE RESIDENCE ON GEORGE VANDERBHLT’S $10,000, 000 ESTATE IN THE NORTH Nature had not intended this mountain for a building such as Vanderbilt contemplated, and so George sat about | to ccrrect the errors of nature. He | simply cut off the top of the mountain, o | and with that part which was cut he built an addition to the part that was left, making the site on which Biltmore House now stands. And before we go any further, it i just as well to understand that in speaking of this wonderful Vanderbilt possessicn a distinction is made be- tween Biltmore and Biltmore Hous Biltmore is the whole estate. Biitmore House is the castle. The fact that George Vanderbilt had undertaken to.alter the Blue Ridge Mountains to suit his purpose in erect- ing a mansion at once called to him the attention of the whole of Western North Carolina. A man that could move mountains must be a person of importance, the natives argued. There was something else about George, however, that proved even more attractive. It was the fact that | he didn't seem to care what anything | cost. Mountain, in Tennessee, a distance of | v miles. Southward was the grim | outline of Caesar's Head, a mountain | in South Carolina, fifty miles away. To the west, dim in that blue haze which gives to this range of mountains its name, was the Georgia line, ninety miles away. To the east, standing anywhere is always a mark for people who have things to sell. He was a special mark in North Carolina. The first tract of land that George Van- | derbilt bought there was known as the bare and bleak and reflecting from its | summit the sun’s rays, that fell upon its snows, was Mount Mitchell, the highest peak east of the Rocky Moun- tains. George Vanderbilt was charmed with this view, as is every one else that sees it. The plateau upon which Asheville stands lies in the shallow cup of the mountains as the bottom lies in a sau- cer. To the beauties of the mountain scenery was added a climate that seemed to tingle with health. The more voung Vanderbilt studied the situation the more he became pleased with it. He sent word to the railroad to side- track his special car until further or- ders, which were not given for six weeks afterward. In the meantime he rode and drove through all the mountains of the neigh- borhocd. One day, when he had ridden to the top of a mountain and had stoad for a long time, delighted with the view, the idea came to him that this would be a splendid place in which to establish a grand estate that would in its proportions and equipment -ival any of the great baromial possessicns of the Old World. He conceived the scheme of building there, in the heart of those smoky peaks, a castle such as America had not known before. He selected a site already occupied by a Seuthern millionaire and offered to purchase it, but the Southerner would not sell. Then young Vanderbilt decided to make a site for himself better than any in the neighborhood. He bought a tract of land on which was a high mountain. | Pisgah forest tract. old Patton plantation. this property came into Mr. Vander- bilt's possession it was offered in the open market for $20,000. He paid $87,- 500 in cash for it. Just as soon as the terms of this sale | became known everybody in Buncombe County wanted to sell George Vander- bilt real estate. joy. But this sort of acquisition was not rapid enough for the young millionaire. He wanted wanted it quick. The highest point in his immediate neighborhood was the peak of Mcunt Pisgah. As there was nothing too high for George he bought | Pisgah. In order to get the peak he took with it what was known as the It was real estate belonging to the Cameron family, and numbered 107,000 acres. The Camerons had paid 35 cents an acre for George paid $1 50 an acre. But this was only a bagatelle to what the ultimate cost proved to be. He had surveys made, established new lines, marked new boundaries and altogether made im- provements until the final cost to him ‘was something like $20 an acre. At this time he seems to have had some little touch of that spirit of hunt- ing that has led him away to India. He established a great game preserve on Mount Pisgah, and there built a hunt- | ing lodge at the cost of stocked the preserve with He and 25,000. deer bear and game birds and fish at a cost | corresponding to the rest of it. If George ever killed anything on the Pis- gah preserve nobody In Asheville ever heard of it. It is known that he went a few times to the lodge, but it is not Now, a man of that description | The year before | He accommodated | many of them. He bought farm after | farm adjoining his property at prices | that made the farmers hilarious with | something big and he | | recorded that he ever fired a shotgun | there. On the posts at Biltmore House marble figures of mythological crea- | tures, half women and half lions, that were imported by George Vanderbilt from Rome for the decorative purpos that they serve. To the average Vv permitted to drive through the Biltmore estate, the rampe douce and the lion ladies are the only object t Biltmore House that may be closely inspected. are a hundred yards of the house itself. This was not always so. In the be- ginning George Vanderbilt very ously permitted the general public wander about and study his ho closely from the outside. But the spiri of vandalism which makes itself ap- appeared here in such an aggravated form that the house, the statuary and all other objects that could be clipped with hammers were attacked and de- faced until it became ne pr srvation of his property to forbid any one not Mr. Vanderbilt's own guest | to come within reaching distance of| | his perishable property. | It required seven years to build Bilt- more House, and the cost of the struct- | ure is estimated at $2,000,000. The in- | terior of the house is far more inter- | esting than the exterior. It has about ninety rooms in all. these it is not necess | @eseription. Of the most of ry to go into any are the library and the bathtub. latter is very large and of solid Italian | marble, and is round in shape like a | baptismal font. breadth of the house—fully fifty feet. It is finished in Circ: ian walnut, im- | ported for the purpose from the shores of the Red Sea. In one end is an im- mense fireplace, over which to the second tier of book shelves. The ceiling is made of a tapestry brought from an old European palace. The shelves are filled with rare books. of these is a copy of the first edition of Bunyan’s “Pilgrim Progress.” Leading from the librar; [ Vanderbilt's “den,” which finished | like the larger room in the same Cir- | cassian walnut from the shores of the | Red Sea. The door connecting the two | apartments is. carved so as to repre- | sent the life-size figure of a monk lift- ing his finger to his lips, the signal for | silence. Tt is in these two apartments that George Vanderbilt takes his greatest joy in Biltmore House, Another room that invites study is known as the tapestry room, one side of which is hung with fine old portieres and the walls of which are devoted to family portraits. Among these is an excellent picture of himself and asplen- did portrait of his mother. The latter occupies the place of honor ahd illustrates in that occupation the devotion of George Vanderbilt to one who, through his life and till she died, was more to him than all else. tor | 0 stranger is permitted to come within | parent in the conduct of most tourists | ary for the | The interesting features | The | The library is in height half that of | the whole house, while the length is the | stair runs | One | is George | CAROLINA TMOUNTAINS. The pictures, the tapestries on cloth I.\r gold, the antique portieres and the | | other decorations of this room make it | exquisite in its effect. Adjoining the libarary is the grand banquet room of Eiltmore House. It is | ninety feet long, forty feet wide, and the height of the house itself. In one end of this magnificent chamber is an | organ loft, from which it was expected the master of Biltmore would pour forth the music to which he is devoted, and which he has always loved so well. | On the walls of this banquet hall are the flags of the thirteen original States of the Union. In the end opposite the organ loft is a grand fireplace, or rath- er three fireplaces in one, with a great marble slab topping the three, and bearing a superbly carved hunting scene cut in the stone. Then there is a wonderful stone spi- ral staircase that is self-supporting, the grand billiard room and the swim- | ming pool in the basement, and a dozen other things of interest of the interior | of this remarkable ho | There is one feature, however, the great winter gard that should not be | omitted. Here the sunlight falls sharp- | Iy in the winter time, and the presence | of plants gi a suggestion of sum- mer. It is the Into it every hall leads. ‘ grand central ending of all the corri- | dors in Biltmore House. Interesting as the interior of Bilt- more House is, and great as is the mansion when one is in it, the estate | itself so far dominates the house that | when one contemplates it as a whole { the house sinks into insignificance. From the. gates of Biltmore on the east, in a straight line across the ins to Hominy Valley in the a distance of thirty-five miles. ecorge Vanderbilt owns it all. | the average width of his possessions is very few persons know, but the total number of acres in the estate is one hundred and twenty thousand. ut the most wonderful part of this vast estate is the way it has been im- proved. In the first place, Vanderbilt stripped vast areas of his property of all the And when he had made bare these mountains he began to take the shrubs from other mountains and replant them. For six years this sort of thing as been going on, under the direction of an army of men that do nothing | occupation by | which they always wear. The number | of trees and shrubs thus planted is al- | most beyond estimate. There are mil- | lions of them. Old and worn and bar- ren fields have been reclaimed and now bristle with young pine, spruce and fir trees. As one drives through this won- derful estate he encounters masses of honeysuckle, redolent with perfume in | springtime, and now in winter time ly- ing red and yellow on the ground, like a beautiful carpet. Vast tangles of wild | roses run along the roadsides and clamber up the hills, while ferns and | ivy are on every hand, and rhododen- What | undergrowth and shrubbery. | else, and that are distinguished in their | a sort of green livery | idrnns abound in jungles among the | pines and mountain oaks. In addition to those transplantings, | which have been made on a scale that is almost incredible, there are thou- sands of other plants that only a pro- | fessional botanist would know names of. It is said that there is not a specimen of ..ora in the world that is not represented at Biltmore, either on the estate or in the greenhouses. And, by the way, these greenhouses themselves are as fine as any in this country. Mr. Vanderbilt's collection of palms is probably the finest in the world. He has one palm for which he paid the sum of $20,000. The rest of his collection shows the same spirit of | liberality, or, rather, disregard of cost. | One peculiarity of the Blue Ridge | Mountains is that there are no lakes in them. George Vanderbilt recog- nized the error of nature in construct- ing a mountain range without lakes, and he has remedied it to the extent that he has built two magnificent arti- ficial lakes near Biltmore House. For many miles he owns both sides of the French Broad River, which flows through his estate, and it is said quite serfously in Asheville that it is Mr. Vanderbilt's purpose to dam up this stream and thereby make an immense inland sea among the peaks of the | Blue Ridge, which shall be so great that his brothers, Cornelius and Willie K. and Fred, can float their magnifi- cent ocean yachts on its waters. NO\\" that Mr. Vanderbilt has gone away to | India, however, the people of Western North Carolina are not so certain that | he will carry this enterprise to suc- cessful completion. Winding through the wvalleys and over the mountains of Biltmore are the finest macadamized roads to be found in this country. They were laid out by Frederick Law Olmstead, the landscape architect of Central Park, | and they traverse the finest park in | the United States. It was Mr. Van- | derbilt's’ intention to build fifty miles | of these roads. He has already built thirty miles and the work is still go- ing on. The religious temperament of George | Vanderbilt is illustrated by the erec- tion of a church at Biltmore station on the Southern Railroad and on his | | own property. Here are a rectory and the offices of his estate. Another interesting characteristic of this many-sided young man is shown in | the elaborate preparations that he has | made for all kinds of farming. He has ‘a chicken farm, a dairy farm, a truck | farm, a nursery farm, and just the | plain, old, common farm on his estate. Some idea of the way in which the | voung millionaire farms may be gained from the fact that he has accepted | plans for a $100,000 chicken-house. Re- cently, at a fair at Raleigh, N. C., George took nearly all the prizes for cattle and vegetables and he felt very | proud of the result. He raises the best | | tomatoes, asparagus, celery, radishes | the | and cucumbers to be found in Bun- combe County, and he sells them at a price that represents about one-fifth the cost of raising them. For instance: Fresh cucumbers grown at Biltmore are now seiling in Asheville at $1 a dozen. They probably cost him $5 a dozen to grow them. Forestry has always been a fad with George Vanderbilt, He has traveled all over the world hunting for odd trees to be planted at Biltmore. He estab- lished a school of forestry on his mag- nificent estate, and paid young men from $40 to $60 a month, with board and lodging free, to come here and study. George also went into the sawmill business. When he was building Bilt- more House and making other im- provements, such as the erection of countless small structures for the use of the workmen employed by him, | some 700 in number, he bought ‘umber from the local sawmill. It is said that the sawmill people, having observed that the whole of Western North Caro- lina was trying to pail the Vanderbilt leg, took a clutch at it themselves. Strange as it may seem in view of the prices he paid for other things, George thought that these lumber people were trying to gouge him. Thereupon he bought the whole sawmill outfit, float- ed his own logs down his own river and went in for making everything necessary for the wooden part of a house. and brick, except those that were used in the swimming pool, which were porcelain coated and imported from Leeds, Eng. The same lavish expenditure . was shown in his stables, which are al- most palaces and which were filled with the finest thoroughbreds that could be Bought in Kentucky and Ten- nessee. George took special pride in naming his horses himself, and here occurred probably the oddest circum- stance in equine nomenclature. He called on of his horses Hall Caine and named all the rest of them after the title or the characters of Caine’s nov- els. George's literary bent made itself manifest even in his stable. The dairy farm was equipped on the same generous plan. He bought one herd of Jersey cattle that cost him $60,000. He considered $4000 for a single bull as nothing. George sells milk and butter in the Asheville market, but if the Asheville people were to pay any- thing like what the product costs him they would not have butter and milk oftener than once a year. George also took a lively interest in the colored’ people of Buncombe County. He built them a place of worship in Asheville of his own de- nomination, the Protestant Episcopal church, and erected an’ institution for young men of that race. Incidentally he raised the rate of wages, which was not as agreeable to the people of West- ern Nerth Carolina as some other He also made all his own tiles | Water Works That Wouldn't Work and a Sinking Foun- dation. things that he did. Adjoining Biltmore was a mountain known locally as Busbee. orge did not care for Busbee. It wasn't near as high as Pisgah, and there was noth- ing about it that was in any way dis- tinctive from the mountains: that > already owned. One day, however, learned that on.the top of Busbee v a spring of very fine water, such s may be found not infrequently in the: mountains. But this particular spring was so clear and so limpid and sweet that George coveted its waters. he He wanted the spring, and so he bought the mountain. He constructed a reservoir, put up the most elaborate pumping machin- ery and laid five miles of pipe, reach ing from Mount Busbee to Biltmore House. What the cost was may be better imagined than told. He had al- ready everything that he could think of, and now he was going to have Mount Busbee water in Biltmore House. He did have it for a while, and then he didn’t, and that fact furnishes the immediate cause for his,going to India. Last summer young Vanderbilt went to Europe and tock with him b= cousin McNamee, who is the attorney and general manager of the Biltmore tate. While they were away | of the foundation of Biltr House sank until the walls sagged the fine marbles used in 'decorating were cracked. The man left in ch e of Biltmore House bacame alarmed and sent to New York for the contrac- tor who erected the house to come on and see what was the matter. The lat- ter responded -post haste and made some remedial improvement. But it is still a questicn as to whether it will be temporary or permanent. About two months ago Mr. Hamiltc McKay Twombly, the most astute Vanderbilt brothers-in-law, took a run down to Biltmore and carefully looketd over the place, taking an inventory of everything. Now Mr. Twombly isn’t a bit theor- etical. He is-always practical and he has no use for anything that doesn’t pay its way. Mr. Twombly has tried fancy farming himself, but it didn’t pay, and Mr. Twombly very promptly sold out and quit the game. ‘When he had examined the condition at Biltmore and had seen that the ex- penment did not pay -and never would he advised George Vanderbilt to give it up. George didg't like the ad- vice. He had made a paradise of a ;desert and he wished to enjoy it. }l»,“, | didn’t care for the money that it cost | him. He was rich and could stand it. But as he was consoling himself with- | the fact that he had what he wished. J for, even if it did cost him more than other men, he called for a servant to bring him a glass of water—water from the Busbee spring. The servant went, but returned with an empty glass. The master of Biltmore demanded to know why his order had not been obey= ed. The servant replied that sométhing had happened to the water pipes or to the machinery, and that no water could be had. Then George Vanderbilt stopped. The sunken foundation, the cracked marbles, the idle saw mill, the unpro- ductive dairy farm, the expensive for- estry school, the unprofitable truck farm, and all the failures that h brother-in-law, Twombly, had pointei out came rushing in on him. He could have stood all these, but he could not stand the climax. He had spent ten milliecn dollars on Biltmore, and he could not get a drink of water! Can we wonder that he decided to-go to India? Half the help of Biltmore has been discharged. The model village is ut @ standstill. The hundred thousand dol lar chicken house is unbuilt. The ga preserve is unused. The prize, atils are for sale for half their cost...The thoroughbred horses may be had:at-a bargain. Buncombe County: mourning and the people of - Wes North Carolina feel as though were smitten by a calamity. “Aud: because the water supply of Biltms is out of order. is ORT GUNNY BAGS, the former home of the “Vigilance Commit- tee,” is the present abode of spices and such things. There dre two windows near the dusty staircase, and from one of these windows James P. Casey, who stabbed James King of William, the editor of the Bulletin, was hanged. At the same time the body of Charles Cora, who killed United States Mar- shal Richardson, swung from the other ‘window. On the day that Cora and Casey ‘were hanged the majority of the popu- lation had gathered along the streets in' front of the Unitarian church to pay a slight tribute of respect to James King of . William. Pio- neers say that just as the pall- bearers reached the first steps the bell on the top of the Vigilance Committee’s building was heard to toll distinctly thrice. Just what the Rev. E. T. Gray and the officiating pall- bearers and mourners did is a matter of some dispute, but that signal was too well known to the citizens, and : one and all made an earnest effort to " reach the little gray building which is . now a storage place for spices. As they ran those who raised their eyes to the second story saw the two murderers swung out to their death. Afterward, when the labors of the “Vigilance Committee” were no longer needed and the guarding six-pounders allowed outsiders to pass up the now dust begrimed steps, and enter through *"the unseen door, the rooms were visited -by thousands of people.: They were decorated - with such relics as the ropes with which Cora and Casey were hanged, the razor with which “Yankee Sullivan” committed suicide, the arms taken from the Law -and Order Com- pany, and the sword worn by John L. Durkee, whose membership in the com- mittee itself did not prevent his being tried for piracy. The Unitarian (lurch' trom which James King of Willlam was buried still stands in its original place ‘on Btockton street, near Sacramento. It was dedicated to its sacred offices in July, 1853, and after the Rev. E. T. Gray resigned his post, it became the church of Thomas Starr King. The church where he once poured forth his eloquence now. bears a sign with the inscription, “A. M. E. Church of Zion.” Chinatown boasts possession of what remains of the first Baptist church ever builded in S8an Francisco. The Rev. O. C. Wheeler started in a tent in 1849, and later was enabled Yo build a very re- spectable looking building wherein to worship. But the corner stone that was laid with devout ceremony now holds aloft a Chinese barber shop and the walls that were dedicated to holy uses now look upon strange sights in the dens within and at the filth and wretchedness without. There is another church of the same denomination on Mission street, a fash- ionable section some years later than '49. Its walls have a leaden look and its roof seems to shrink away from the light of day, and it is struggling to maintain its ancient dignity in the present garb of a second-hand store. In the place where the aitar stood (al- though it seems an extravagant fancy) there stands a pile of old and rusted iron and dilapidated stoves. Along the walls hang every conceivable article that can be upheld by means of a peg or nail. And high up the rafters are hung with cobwebs and the walls are covered with the dust of time. There is a little worn church on How- ard street which bears its broken win- dows and neglected surroundings bravely and tries to hide its face behind the sign of an athletic associa- tion. On Clay street, near Battery, there is cne that the first settlers in Ban Francisco worshiped in and which now shelters all sorts of furniture. Another church which used to frown religiously at a Sunday smile now stares calmly at the greenness of our gracious park and supplies the Sun- day pleasure-seekers with cycles. On the corner of Waverly place and Clay street is a plain two-story build- ing, and Chinese occupy every square inch of it. The lower portion is a mar- ket, with a wondrous display of pecu- liar fish and vegetables and Chinese with ancient looks. No passer-by to- day would believe that this place was the first postoffice in San Francisco, | and the late Captain of Police John Short was the first Postmaster. Afterward the office was re- moved to the northeast cor- ner of Kearny and Clay streets. The offices of the stages that ran from here to San Jose and Santa Cruz and Monterey were in the front of tt building and the single fare to Mon- terey by stage was $20. Formerly the Law and Order party occupied this same building, and it was also the first building in the city to be graced by the presence of a melodeon, and was where Lottie Crabtree made her debut in the Bella Union Theater and insured her future success. Within the environments of China- town there are two other interesting buildings whose complexion has con- siderably changed. On the northwest corner of Jackson and Dupont streets is the old Globe Hotel. At one time the tourists occupied the roems and paid $2 a day for the privilege. Now the place that afforded comfort for about two hundred and fifty guests harbors nearly a thousand Chinese, and it has grown black in the face in the doing of it. And the awnings that once fluttered gaily now, tattered and torn, wave aloft Chinese signs and signals and torn umbrellas and garments that ave strange in the fashioning. And there is a “melee of horns and hoofs and heads” in windows and doors and cracks and the odors that come from the openings are stifling. Just above Stockton street, on Jack- son, Dr. Toland, the founder of Toland College, built a home and built it J strong and true for himself and his heirs forever. Like its fellows, it has fallen into the possession of the Chinese, and in the windows where Dr. Toland’s lace curtains once hung | gracefully, the habiliments of the graceless yellow man swing freely. The old building, which stands di- rectly opposite the Postoffice on Bat- tery and Washington streets, was once for a short time practically the capitol building of the State. When it was first erected it had a large glass dome on top, and was used as a Merchants’ Exchange. In 18€0-61 the Sacramento River flooded; and the legislators sought a council chamber in this city. The glass dome has been removed, and nothing is the same excepting the side- walk in front of the building, which was laid in the year 1854, by Colonel Russ of New York simply as an ex- periment, and the experiment has worn out nearly every walk that has been laid since. It is stated in con- nection with this same sidewalk that the patter of the footsteps of the plain, ordinary, working citizens so disturbed the legislators sitting within that the bark of trees had to be laid all along in front of the building to break the sound. Commercial street was a thorough- fare of considerable importance in the early days when the water came up a short way above Leidesdorff street, and the 1200-foot wharf reached out to the river and Panama steamers. On the corner of Leidesdorff and Commer- cial streets—the northwest corner— there stands the building formerly oc- cupied by the Pacific Mail Steamship Company as its first home. At present it shows a shrinking roof and a sway- ing veranda sign, where the ghosts of. knives and razors are flying franti- cally in the air, and a cafe. On the south side of Commercial street, just below Leidesdorff, a queer looking building, now occupied as a paper warehouse, wasinthe early fifties a Chinese bazaar. It was kept by the man who in later yeas became noto- rious as the wrecker of the Pioneer Bank, and who also helped to build the safe deposit vaults now in the building at California and Montgomery streets. Mr. Duncan had a periodical lottery of Chinese goods, and as his was the first enterprise of its kind here he made a fortune from it. Further down Commercial street, on the opposite side and near Battery, a granite front building, sadly neglected and filled to overflowing with the Chi- nese, is all that remains of Hendrick- son’s Raliroad House, which in its time was the finest restaurant San Fran- cisco knew. After the earthquake of 1858 the upper story had to be rebuilt, but the lower story remains, apparent- ly as it was in the beginning. The place was celebrated in its early days for the paintings that covered its walls. They were executed by two of Califor- nia’s earliest and most famous artists, Charles and Arthur Nahl. The most ecstatic imagination could not conjure up a picture on those same walls to- day. In fact, a ray of light does not appear to have reached them for many a year, and the spiders that live on foul air weave their webs unmolested. There were exciting times in the city at the time of the receipt of the news of the assassination of President Lin- ‘coln. A mob attacked some of the newpapers. L'Echo de Pacifiqre, the News Letter, the Monitor and the Oc- cidental, edited by Zach Montgomery, all received due attention, and then the mob betook itself to the'building wherein was published the Democrat- ic Press, by Beriah Brown. The old red brick building still stands at 553 Washington street, and just at this time it is extensively decorated with dead turkeys; but out of those uppers, where the heads of Chinamen and the TRANSFORMATIONS IN THE FAMOUS HOUSES OF PIONEER DAYS. lengths of pipes are plainly visibfe, the mob threw all of Beriah Brown's type into the street and generally demol- ished things. When the mob left the wreck of Beriah Brown's property it betook itself to the home of the Placer Times-Herald, on Sacramento street, near Montgomery. Here, however, it was met by the militia under McComb and the police, headed by Martin J. Burke, ‘and was checked. The tall, light building, which looks solemnly down on the narrow street, plainly betraying its own importance, was the abode of the Alta-California, while the Placer Times-Herald was no more. Now an ordinary sign of “Pic- tures” is painted on the upper walls, and below nothing more unusual or ex- citing is to be found than a very ordi- nary appearing saloon. Speaking of saloons, on Washington street there is the queerest little blue building, with equally queer signs. It began its long existence as the “Auc- tion . Lunch,” and was kept by Flood & O'Brien long before the California mining excitement made them “bonan- za kings.” On the north side of Montgomery, near Washington street, there is a building where bread is now sold at the rate of three loaves for 5 cents, but in that same building it cost the citizens of this same city 50 cents for a shave—and the same price for ‘a shampoo; $1 was the price of a hair- cut, and likewise a bath; and 25 cents was the minimum for a bootblack. The building still standing, and nun- bering 320 Kearny street, was the once famous Eureka Minstrel Hall where, in the days gone by, Billy Birch, Chadlie ‘White and Charlie Backus led the ;an Francisco minstrels. For years it was one of the best show places to be found; but it was finally turned ixto a bowling alley. and then an anatomical museum,’ and- to-day the chief thing | about it seems to be a well-crowied saloon. i On ‘thé south side of Commérciil | street. just below Dupont, stands the | insufficient-looking building: that “was | once known as the Union: ‘Thedter. | McKean Buchanan, - the. tragedian, | played Virginius there, and: Bowena Granice, who wrote the first California novel, also graced that : And in those same da¥ Opera House stood at 618 W street. The building looks tin¥ N and dilapidated and is used ds:.a StOn house; but such artists as’the -elder Booth, Mrs. Bowers, Add kens, Frank Mayo, the. ¢ide; and Charles Thorn, Sophie ¥ | Agatha and Amanda States; ‘the, Man* | eville sisters and the Bidircas: per: formed there. And the ladies in their: great hoop skirts, beruffied and be- decked with ribbons, laces and flow ers and tiny turbans &nd-:iflowing: veils, crowded the little opera house and listened with thrilling heat! shining eyes to the maste: drama. - Nothing remains now hut the:facade’ of the once well-known ' Theater at 721 Montgomer: Vernon Hall, jusz ACT to lectures and concerts, . tially transformed into E house. The Wright bulldlng of Montgomery and Jacl».s was built in 1853. It i3 maining type of a house’ period in that portion of ¢ The third period house was known by its square roof and numerous ver- andas; the second period house, of which a sample still stands at. the corner of California and Battery, pos- sessed numerous peaks about the roof and no porches. The Rock House, now. standing :at the corner of Kearny street . and Broadway, is half of what was for- merly well known to the elite of edrly days as the Tehama House. The.other half of it stands on Stevenson- street, Jjust back of St. Patrick's Church.