Glimpsing 16 O’Farrell: The Building Where 10,000 Paid Their Last Respects to the Emperor Norton

November 08, 2026 / John Lumea

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 unremarkable two-story 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 — further illuminating the street scene on the Emperor's funeral day.

We hope you enjoy the results of our "dig" as much as we enjoyed the digging.

A Funeral Cortege "Two Miles Long"? Not Really.

May 22, 2023 / John Lumea

In his 1986 book Norton I: Emperor of the United States (Dodd, Mead) — long regarded as the “standard biography” of Emperor Norton — William Drury indulges in some evidentiary sleight-of-hand to create the false impression that the cortege that followed the Emperor from his funeral site to his grave site was “two miles long.”

In the decades since the publication of Drury’s book, this “cortege claim” has become one of the most commonly deployed flourishes in the popular telling of the Emperor Norton story.

In fact, the most reliable and detailed eyewitness report published the day after the Emperor’s funeral indicates that, while the cortege route was about two miles long, the length of the cortege itself was maybe a half-block.

Also included here: The origins of the claim that “30,000” people viewed the Emperor lying in state — or even constituted the cortege — rather than the already-exceptional “10,000” reported the next day.

The Other Side of Bagley Place

April 07, 2021 / John Lumea

In recent years, there have been several claims on social media and elsewhere that Emperor Norton’s funeral in 1880 took place on the northeast corner of Bagley Place and O'Farrell Street, in San Francisco — on (or nearest to) the site of a building, still standing, that opened in 1910 as a bank; that in the last decade has housed an Emporio Armani store; and that today is home to the Museum of Ice Cream.

The temptation to connect this site to the Emperor’s funeral is understandable. The heavy, domed, stone-clad, temple-like edifice that now occupies the site has more than a touch of the funereal. Until very recently, the building had on the O’Farrell Street side medieval-looking, vault-like wooden doors that only added to the effect.

But, most likely, Emperor Norton’s funeral was across the street.

The Emperor Norton Trust

Filtering by Tag: funeral

Glimpsing 16 O’Farrell: The Building Where 10,000 Paid Their Last Respects to the Emperor Norton

A Funeral Cortege "Two Miles Long"? Not Really.

The Other Side of Bagley Place