San Francisco, California 1850

Theodore Augustus Barry (1825-1881) and Benjamin Adam Patten (1825-1877) established their credentials as California pioneers by arriving in their adopted state before January 1, 1850. Men and memories of San Francisco (1873) gave later arrivals a detailed picture of the city as it existed a few months before California statehood. They described the streets and the residences and businesses that lined each thoroughfare and alley as well as the men and women who owned those homes, boarding-houses, hotels, restaurants, saloons, stores, offices, and shops. They also chronicled the fire of 1851 which destroyed so many of the structures they described. While they focused on the city as it was in early 1850, their sketches of its residents extended further, often forming capsule biographies of their subjects.