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Portsmouth Square





HISTORY

In 1846, when the Americans were taking California, Captain Montgomery from the United States sailed his warship, the USS Portsmouth , into San Francisco Bay, fired a twenty-one gun salute and rowed ashore with his Marines and raised the flag over Portsmouth Square. A plot of land that began life as a pasture and potato patch and with the Gold Rush , grew to become the original city center of San Francisco, hosting gambling halls, hotels and playhouses uphill from the first waterfront landings.


TODAY

The square is now part of Chinatown . A monument to Robert Louis Stevenson sits at the north west corner of the current square, rebuilt over a parking garage.


SOURCE

  • O'Brien, Robert - ''This is San Francisco'' - 1948, Chronicle Books, 1994