FIELD TALK #1 | The Street Where He Lived: An Illustrated History of Emperor Norton's Commercial Street

What do you call a single-site exploration that's a cross between a field trip and an historical walking tour?

We're calling it a Field Talk. 

Join The Emperor's Bridge Campaign* as we kick off this occasional series with a visit to the block of Commercial Street, between Montgomery and Kearny Streets, in San Francisco, where Emperor Norton is documented to have lived from sometime between summer 1864 and summer 1865 until he died in 1880. **
 

FIELD TALK #1 | The Street Where He Lived
An Illustrated History of Emperor Norton's Commercial Street

Sunday 22 March from 4 to 5 p.m.
Gather at the southwest corner of
Kearny & Commercial Streets
San Francisco

After a brief introduction at Kearny and Commercial, we'll move to the sidewalk across from Empire Park, at 642 Commercial (between Kearny and Montgomery).

The talk starts at 4 p.m. sharp. Please be prompt.
 

We'll look at the general evolution of the block and its neighborhood from the Emperor's time until today.

We'll do a "close read" of the history of the site where the Emperor slept — from the site's days as host to the Eureka Lodgings, the imperial residence from 1864/65 to 1880; to its brief stint as home one of the country's preeminent fine printing presses; to its presentation incarnation as the privately owned Empire Park. 

We also will explore the relationship of the Eureka site to its next-door neighbors — on one side, the site of another boarding house, where Emperor Norton read his morning papers; on the other; the site of the Morning Call newspaper, where Samuel Clemens, soon to be better known as Mark Twain, had a desk in the summer of 1864.

::   ::   ::
 

Afterward, we'll adjourn for liquid refreshments and a nibble — possibly to Comstock Saloon, a few blocks away, where a statue of the Emperor with a terrific story of its own presides over the bar.

::   ::   ::
 

This Field Talk will include a handout of archival photographs and drawings of a selection of the sites and buildings we'll be discussing.

Sliding-scale donation of $5-10 is requested. No one will be turned away.

Please join us!!!

* In December 2019, The Emperor's Bridge Campaign adopted a new name: The Emperor Norton Trust.

* This announcement originally dated Emperor Norton’s arrival at the Eureka Lodgings as “late 1862 / early 1863.” But, our subsequent research, published in January 2022, points to a later arrival.

:: :: ::

For an archive of all of the Trust’s blog posts and a complete listing of search tags, please click here.

Search our blog...