missions, and which plied between San Jose and San
Francisco. At that time Mr. Richardson was also captain of the port.

Seventy-five years ago the white adult males, apart from the Mission
colony, consisted of sixteen persons. The local census of 1852 showed
a population of 36,000, and ten years later 90,000. The last general
census of 1900 credits the city with a population of 343,000. The
increase in the last six years has been much greater than for the
previous five, and it is generally conceded that the population at the
time of the fire was about 425,000.

California was declared American territory by Commodore Sleat, at
Monterey, on the 7th of July, 1846, who on that day caused the
American flag to be raised in that town. On the following day, under
instructions from the commodore, Captain Montgomery, of the war sloop
Portsmouth, performed a similar service in Yerba Buena, by which name
the city afterwards christened San Francisco was then known. This
ceremony took place on the plot of ground, afterward set apart as
Portsmouth Square, on the west line of Kearney street, between Clay
and Washington. At that time and for some years afterwards, the waters
of the bay at high tide, came within a block of the spot where this
service occurred. This was a great event in the history of the United
States, and it has grown in importance and in appreciative remembrance
from that day to the present, as the accumulative evidence abundantly
shows.

Referring to the change in name from Yerba Buena to San Francisco, in
1847, a writer says: "A site so desirable for a city, formed by nature
for a great destiny on one of the finest bays in the world, looking
out upon the greatest, the richest, and the most pacific of oceans--in
the very track of empire--in the healthiest of latitudes--such a site
could not fail to attract the attention of the expanding Saxon race.
Commerce hastened it, the discovery of gold consummated it."

Modern San Francisco had its birth following the gold discoveries
which led to the construction of the Central Pacific railway, and
produced a vast number of very wealthy men known by the general title
of California Bonanza Kings. San Francisco became the home and
headquarters of these multi-millionaires, and large sums of their
immense fortunes were invested in palatial residences and business
blocks.

The bonanza king residence section was Nob Hill, an eminence near the
business part of the city.

In