San Francisco History Association Endorses SCR 193, "Emperor Norton Tunnel" Naming Resolution
Longtime Producer of Popular Series of Monthly Talks On San Francisco History Joins Movement to Honor a Favored Folk Hero
THE EMPEROR NORTON TRUST is delighted to announce that the San Francisco History Association has submitted to the California state legislature a letter in support of Senate Concurrent Resolution 193. This resolution, introduced earlier this week by California State Senator Scott Wiener, would designate the San Francisco–Oakland Bay Bridge tunnel through Yerba Buena Island, S.F., as the
EMPEROR NORTON TUNNEL
The Emperor Norton Trust is the citizen sponsor of SCR 193.
Here is the letter (doc):
San Francisco History Association board member Judi Leff opens the Association’s letter by noting that “[w]e have strong connections to the lore and legacy of the Emperor.”
That is an understatement. In the modern parlance, the Association could be described as an unapologetic Emperor Norton “stan.”
The Association’s founder, the late Ron Ross (1936–1922), was one of the earliest Advisors to The Emperor Norton Trust starting in 2014, when the recently founded Trust still was operating under its original name, “The Emperor’s Bridge Campaign.”
The Trust’s research enterprise initially was made possible, in part, by a seed grant in the form of a 2015 Research Gift from the Association.
And, when The Emperor’s Bridge Campaign was honored to receive the Association’s Ron Ross Founder’s Award in 2016, the citation specified that the Award was presented to the Campaign “for its work to honor history by working to rename the San Francisco–Oakland Bay Bridge the Emperor Norton Bridge.”
Judi Leff’s own yearslong interest in the figure born Joshua Abraham Norton has included particular contributions that advance understanding and appreciation for the Jewish legacy of the Emperor. In 2015, Leff spearheaded a project that resulted in installation of a cenotaph for Emperor Norton at Home of Peace, the Jewish cemetery in Colma, Calif., that is about a mile from the Emperor’s grave at Woodlawn Memorial Park in Colma.
A little earlier, in late 2014, Leff discovered an apparent February 1818 circumcision record for Joshua Norton while part of the ad hoc group of researchers — including from the former Emperor’s Bridge Campaign — that established the recognition of 4 February 1818 as Emperor Norton’s birth date.
Another contributor to that group was Leff’s SFHA board colleague Joseph Amster, who for more than a decade has made appearances — both as a walking tour guide and a public speaker — as an Emperor Norton impersonator and reenactor.
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The Emperor Norton Trust is honored by the support of the San Francisco History Association for SCR 193, a legislative resolution that traces its origins to the “Emperor Norton Tunnel” naming proposal that the Trust authored and published in August 2025.
The SFHA endorsement follows earlier endorsements from:
San Francisco Historical Society
Imperial Council of San Francisco
Chinese Historical Society of America
Treasure Island Museum
Freedom From Religion Foundation (SF Bay Chapter)
California Lodge No. 1 of Free and Accepted Masons.
The addition of this letter from the San Francisco History Association further strengthens and clarifies the broad support that the "Emperor Norton Tunnel" naming resolution enjoys from the San Francisco history community — and will make it that much easier for Senator Wiener to make the strongest possible case to his colleagues in the California state legislature.
The Trust looks forward to working with the San Francisco Historical Society to make the Emperor Norton Tunnel a reality.
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