RECENT RESEARCH — A newly unearthed photograph showing the north side of the 600 block of Commercial Street, San Francisco, in the aftermath of the earthquake and fires of 1906 reveals, for the first time, visual evidence of the fate of the building that housed the Eureka Lodgings, where Emperor Norton lived from 1864–65 until his death in 1880. Our analysis of the photo sharpens the focus on the identities and locations of the buildings along this stretch — and exactly what each building suffered in 1906. Includes our highly researched new infographic that can be used as a tool for understanding the history of this location.

The Emperor Norton Trust

TO HONOR THE LIFE + ADVANCE THE LEGACY OF JOSHUA ABRAHAM NORTON

RESEARCH • EDUCATION • ADVOCACY

Filtering by Tag: Second Committee of Vigilance

The Emperor Was Not Amused

December 21, 2021  /  John Lumea

Ostensibly, this is a piece about our recent discovery of a Proclamation in which Emperor Norton, in 1867, prohibited unauthorized stage depictions of himself.

But, a theater’s offending play and the Emperor’s response are the bread of the sandwich on offer here. The real meat is a brief history of the varied theatrical/“amusement” enterprises and their producers/impresarios that, over the course of a decade or so in the 1850s and ‘60s, occupied the second floor of the building where the play was staged — a building just around the corner from the Emperor’s imperial digs on Commercial Street in San Francisco.

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categories / Research, Proclamations, Places, Original sources
tags / California Exchange, Kearny Street, Clay Street, Second Committee of Vigilance, John "Grizzly" Adams, Pacific Museum, Ferdinand Gilbert, Gilbert's Melodeon, Lotta Crabtree, William Worrell, Worrell's Olympic, Olympic Theater, The Naked Truth, Frank Prescott, Theater, burlesque, 1850, 1855, 1856, 1859, 1862, 1865, 1867

© 2025 The Emperor Norton Trust  |  Site design: Alisha Lumea  |  Background: Original image courtesy of Erica Fischer