Glimpsing 16 O’Farrell: The Building Where 10,000 Paid Their Last Respects to the Emperor Norton
Attentive students of the Emperor Norton story know that, when the Emperor died on 8 January 1880, his body was brought to the City Morgue at 16 O'Farrell Street.
It was in a back room of the morgue, in this building at the east end of O'Farrell, that a reported 10,000 people came to view the Emperor in the morning and early afternoon hours of January 10.
One of the other two tenants of this building — the third was the City Coroner's office — was Lockhart & Porter undertakers, where the Emperor's funeral took place at about 2:30 p.m.
In early 2021, The Emperor Norton Trust was able to establish that 16 O'Farrell was at the northwest corner of O'Farrell Street and Bagley Place — the latter of which today is known as Security Pacific Place.
But we — nor anyone else, as far as we know — have ever been able to find a photographic record of the building. Until now.
Shown here for the first time in this context is a photograph we recently uncovered, taken in the mid to late 1880s, that provides an admittedly blurry — but nonetheless real — view of the building where Emperor Norton lay in state in the hours before being laid to rest at the Masonic Cemetery.
We use the photo as a springboard for a deep-dive into the history of this and several neighboring buildings and sites in the period between the mid 1860s and the earthquake and fires of April 1906.
We hope you enjoy the results of our "dig" as much as we enjoyed the digging.
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