First Annual Barbary Coast Trail Walk

San Francisco has recently created a walking tour of the downtown area, the Barbary Coast Trail ™, bringing tourists and others face to face with the history of our town. It was modeled on Boston’s Freedom Trail, and gives the adventurous pedestrian an efficient and annotated path thru areas where the Gold Rush started, where sailors were shanghaied, where the Beat generation made its mark and so on.

Debi and I are “members” of the historial society which is developing the trail, and today was the inaugural walk, which began at the Old Mint Building on 5th.   The organizer, Daniel Bacon, introduced former Mayor Willie Brown, who didn’t disappoint anyone with his spirited remarks.

Bacon repeated the famous dictum of our current Mayor, Gavin Newsom, that “San Francisco is the only city in the world with two mayors … me … and Willie Brown.”

Many of the women were dressed in period costumes, and I’ll post some of their pictures below.  The day was beautiful as we walked north to Powell and Market and then to Union square, where a ‘docent’ regaled us with some of the history of the square

Dan Bacon made one observation about the year 1849 that bears pondering: After the discovery of gold the year earlier, the population of SF stated doubling EVERY TWO WEEKS. People came from all over the world — China, Chile, Europe, Eastern US, Mexico — and it was the first time, in the history of the world, where a city was created with no dominant culture or race. New York was a melting pot, but accreted with a sequence of waves — Germans, Irish, Polish, Russian, etc. San Francisco was a flash mob of people literally of every background. Maybe that explains our rather tolerant culture — why it’s no surprise that Allen Ginsberg and Lawrence Ferlinghetti and Jack Kerouac led the Beats here in the ’50s, the hippies exploded in the 60s, gays were welcomed so early and why, today, the initiative to legalize marijuana looks like it will win.

Anyway, here are some pictures, mostly of the people on the tour with us.   Click on any picture to enlarge.   (Slideshow of all pix here.)