control by the heroic efforts of the soldiers and firemen, a
little group of the leading citizens of the desolated city had met
in the office of Mayor Eugene E. Schmitz and had begun to plan the
restoration of their municipality. It was an admirable courage, bred in
the stock of those men who in 1849 left comfortable homes in the East to
seek their fortune in the Golden State, that inspired the loyal leaders
of the present day citizens to provide with far-seeing eyes for
the rebuilding of their homes and business houses with more orderly
precision after the fire than had been possible during the hustle of
early days in a new city.

The old San Francisco was no more, and never could be recalled save as
a memory. The local color, atmosphere, that which might be termed the
feeling of the old city, vanished with the clustered houses, as rich
in tradition as the ancient missions in whose cloisters worshiped the
Spanish padre "before the Gringo came." Heartrending as it was to the
citizens who loved their homes and haunts to see them disappear into
smoke, there was an attraction about the city of the Golden Gate which
endeared it to all Americans.

One of San Francisco's charms was in its defiance of precedent. There
were hills to be conquered, and San Francisco' s expanding traffic
hurled itself at the face of them. It went up and up, with no thought
of finding a way around. So it happened that on some of the streets the
steepness was too great for horses. In the centre there are cable roads,
and on either side of the rails grass grows through the cobbles. The
earlier structures on the level were put together in haste. For the most
part they remained essentially unchanged until they fell with a
crash. True, they had become stained by time, unkempt, dwarfed by new
neighbors, but nobody desired to efface them. Away from the business
section houses appeared on the various hills, perched precariously near
the brink; houses reached by long flights and grown over with roses. The
bathing fogs touched them with gray. Moss grew on their roofs. In the
little, lofty yards calla lilies bloomed with the profusion of weeds.
The natural beauty of the site, the quaintness of the commercial and
social development of which it became the centre, attracted the poet
and the artist. It incited them to paint the attractions and to sing the
praises of their chosen home.

But the loyal sons of those brave pioneers who founded the metropolis
were