The Pantheonic Statuette of Norton I

May 30, 2023 / John Lumea

It’s well known that souvenir photographs and lithographs of Emperor Norton were sold in San Francisco shops during the Emperor’s lifetime.

Norton biographer William Drury takes it considerably further to claim that, by the early 1870s, there was a whole cottage industry of “Emperor Norton statuettes, Emperor Norton dolls, Emperor Norton mugs and jugs, Emperor Norton Imperial Cigars” — and even that there were peddlers hawking Emperor Norton merch at his funeral.

I find no evidence to support much of what Drury asserts — but…

In 1877 — a couple of years before Emperor Norton died in 1880 — a German immigrant jeweler and sculptor in San Francisco created a highly accomplished statuette of the Emperor that deserves a much closer look than it has received.

Although there is no ready evidence that this nearly-two-foot-tall statuette was sold in shops, there is evidence to suggest that it was a fixture in San Francisco saloons — and even that the Emperor himself had a copy in his apartment.

Among other things, I document here the three known copies of the statuette and offer a glimpse into the life and work of the sculptor.

There even are cameo appearances from historians of Ancient Rome and the Oxford English Dictionary.

It’s a fascinating story, previously untold.

Is the Clock Tower of the San Francisco Ferry Building Based on the Bell Tower of a Cathedral in Spain?

November 15, 2022 / John Lumea

In connection with The Emperor Norton Trust’s recent proposal that the San Francisco Ferry Building’s clock tower be named “The Emperor Norton Tower” next year — the 125th anniversary of the Ferry Building — we’ve been doing some additional research into the design and construction of the building and its tower.

The Ferry Building opened in 1898, and one of the chestnuts that has been repeated about the building for most of its lifetime — increasingly so in the period after World War II — is the claim that the design of the clock tower is “based on” — or “modeled after” — or “patterned after” the 12th-century bell tower, known as La Giralda, of the Seville Cathedral in Spain.

Some commentators have gone so far as to say that the Ferry Building clock tower is a “replica” of the Giralda.

But, the historical and visual record reveals the Ferry Building tower’s architectural debt to the Giralda to be significantly less than these unqualified claims suggest.

Read on for a well-documented, highly illustrated deep-dive.

Emperor Norton’s Residence, the Eureka Lodgings, Was Not Located (Exactly) Where You Think It Was

September 26, 2022 / John Lumea

Over the last 25 years or so, a consensus has emerged among those attuned to San Francisco history — and particularly among Nortonophiles — that the former site of the Eureka Lodgings — where Emperor Norton is documented to have lived between 1864/1865 and his death in 1880 — is the privately owned public open space (POPOS) known as Empire Park, located at 642 Commercial Street between Montgomery and Kearny Streets.

That's been the consensus.

But, a careful analysis of two key bodies of evidence — (1) photographs of this stretch of Commercial Street taken between 1877 and 1906, and (2) Sanborn fire insurance and official San Francisco block (property) maps from the generation or two before and after the earthquake and fires of 1906 — reveal the Empire Park designation to be mistaken.

The Eureka Lodgings was located on Commercial Street between Montgomery and Kearny — just not on that site.

In the attached deeply researched and documented — and extensively illustrated — article, I provide:

1) Confirmation — for the first time, I believe — of the visual ID of the Eureka Lodgings building, using photographs from during and after Emperor Norton's lifetime. (Don’t miss the fabulous detail in these new hi-res scans from 1878, c.1892–94 and 1906 — worth the price of admission!)

2) A new location for the former site of the Eureka that better accords with the historical record.

It's a deep dive — so, pull up a chair!

The Emperor Norton Trust

Filtering by Tag: 1906

The Pantheonic Statuette of Norton I

Is the Clock Tower of the San Francisco Ferry Building Based on the Bell Tower of a Cathedral in Spain?

Emperor Norton’s Residence, the Eureka Lodgings, Was Not Located (Exactly) Where You Think It Was