Bill Drury's "Emperor Norton Bridge" Petition of 1986
Drury: “San Francisco–Oakland Bay Bridge” the “Dullest Bloody Name Any Bridge Could Have”
EVER SINCE the San Francisco–Oakland Bay Bridge opened in November 1936 — and probably before — there have been those calling for the bridge to be named the “Emperor Norton Bridge.”
But, to our knowledge, there have been only a handful of formal collective public efforts to make this a reality.
By far, the most sustained of these efforts has been our own still-active 8-year campaign, launched in August 2013 with my Change.org petition that, as of this writing, stands at 6,275 signatures.
Prior to that, a 2004 effort took flight and was kept aloft through a series of Farley comics by the late Phil Frank (1943–2007) — published in the San Francisco Chronicle between September and December 2004.
In November 2004, towards the end of Frank’s series, San Francisco District 3 Supervisor Aaron Peskin introduced a resolution in the Board of Supervisors calling for the entire Bay Bridge to be designated as the “Emperor Norton Bridge.”
Alas, the resolution that the Board actually passed in December 2004 called for only the yet-to-be-constructed new eastern section of the bridge — the “Oakland side” — to be named after the Emperor. Which is to say: the resolution was dead on arrival.
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BUT, THERE HAD BEEN one previous public effort to get the State of California to name the Bay Bridge after Emperor Norton.
To our discredit, we’ve barely talked about it.
In December 2004, the day after the Board of Supervisors vote, Phil Frank was interviewed on NPR about that year’s effort.
Late in the 5-minute interview, Frank briefly references a previous effort: a “petition…to the Governor, with 60,000 signatures.”
Although Frank doesn’t put a date on this petition, I long have heard anecdotal references to an “Emperor Norton Bridge” petition in “the 1980s” that got “60,000 signatures.”
I’m dubious about the “60,000” claim. Surely, an “Emperor Norton Bridge” petition with that many names behind it would have gotten headlines at the time. I’ve seen none.
The version of the story that has come to me always has the petition as a project of E Clampus Vitus, i.e., the Clampers. I’ve had no reason to doubt this — but, I also have seen no evidence for it. Frank, who was a Clamper, didn’t mention any such connection in his NPR interview.
As it turns out — new discovery…
The petition was spearheaded in 1986 by William Drury, whose biography on Emperor Norton was published that year.
The following appeared in the San Francisco Examiner on 15 January 1986:
“The Norton Bridge,” San Francisco Examiner, 15 January 1986, p. 2. Source: Newspapers.com
Norton biographer Bill Drury in 1986.
Every year, on the Saturday closest to January 8th, the anniversary of Emperor’s death, the Clampers make a pilgrimage to the Emperor’s grave, at Woodlawn cemetery in Colma, Calif.
The fact that Drury launched his petition at the most recent of these pilgrimages — probably on Saturday 4 January 1986 — begs the question: Was Bill Drury a Clamper?
Drury answers that question himself, in an appendix, “The Clampers,” that appears at the end of his biography. By way of introducing a point, Drury writes: “Being a Clamper myself and bound by the order’s rules….”
Drury brings his Clamppendix to a close as follows:
The bridge ought to be renamed.
The San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge is a clumsy name, anyway. Nobody calls it that, because it's much too long to pronounce; you can't get your tongue around it without swallowing twice. People on both sides of the water simply call it the Bay Bridge, a name equally without charm, as gray as the paint on its girders. Its name, like its color, makes it no match for the gilded and more poetically named, though smaller, span that crosses the strait called the Golden Gate. The Emperor Norton Bridge has a better ring to it, and that should be its name.
Then, perhaps, that bridge too will get into travel brochures and onto the television screens, and the Emperor's name will once again be known all over the land.
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PHIL FRANK stepped into the fray in October 1986, with the following half-dozen Farley strips that appeared in the San Francisco Chronicle on the following dates:
October 14
October 15
October 20
October 23
October 24
October 27
Alas, it appears that the Chronicle gave this noble effort no additional ink.
Indeed, interest in Bill Drury’s “Emperor Norton Bridge” petition already had dried up by the time Frank’s comics were published.
One of the last mentions of the petition was in the following UPI article published in the tiny Sunday Signal of Santa Clarita, Calif., on 15 June 1986.
“Honors for Emperor Norton?” UPI story published in the Santa Clarita, Calif., Sunday Signal, 15 June 1986, p. 7, Source: Newspapers.com
Drury: “We want to get this movement going to catch the 50th anniversary of the bridge in November.” The fact that Drury had tried to launch the “movement” In January and still was trying to “get [it] going” 5 months later, with only 5 months to go before the bridge’s 50th anniversary, speaks to the challenges that long have been involved in trying to bring this particular honor to pass. We can relate.
The article continues: “Drury has collected signatures from more than 350 people….Most of those who have signed are members of the Ancient and Honorable Order of E Clampus Vitus.”
To be fair, 1986 was before the era of the online petition that could be spread in viral fashion.
But, one does get a picture of a petition that was never truly public — with Drury walking it from one Clamper event to the next.
Given that articles casting Drury as the leader of an “Emperor Norton Bridge” movement disappear at precisely the moment, in mid 1986, that reviews of his new book start showing up, one has to wonder: Did Drury’s publisher, Dodd, Mead & Company, put the kibosh on his public bridge advocacy? — the idea being that it would be a liability for the book (and its sales), if Drury was too closely identified with what already was seen as a failed petition. Or, was Drury’s petition part of a worked-out strategy, in which Drury and his publisher had agreed from the get-go that he would spend the first half of the year on the petition, to “prime the pump” for the book — with an “extension” on bridge activities, if the petition actually took off? Maybe a bit of both?
Certainly, if any signatures from the bridge effort landed on the desk of then-California Governor George Deukmejian, the event doesn’t appear to have made the papers.
At least, Bill Drury got in one pointed line that UPI San Francisco bureau chief Richard Harnett thought was good enough to put into print, calling “San Francisco–Oakland Bay Bridge” the “dullest bloody name any bridge could have.”
That was 35 years ago. Next year, 2022, will be the 150th anniversary of Emperor Norton’s three “bridge Proclamations” setting out the original vision for the Bay Bridge in 1872.
Who knows? Maybe this time we’ll win!
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To learn about The Emperor Norton Trust’s project calling on the California state legislature simply add "Emperor Norton Bridge" as an honorary name for the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge — leaving in place all existing names and signage for the bridge and its constituent parts ("spans," tunnel, pedestrian / bike path) — please visit:
EmperorNortonBridge.org
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