absolutely free from debt. The charter under which the municipality is now governed is as rigidly drawn as the act it displaced, limiting the rate of taxation for ordinary municipal purposes to 1 per cent. on the assessed valuation of all property. An extra tax may be levied to meet unusual requirements, and there is a comprehensive license system. The assessed value of all property on March 1, 1903, was $428,000,000. The expenditures provided for in the budget of 1903 aggregated $6,150,400, the chief items being: Public schools, $1,245,000; police, $941,848; fire department, $845,150; public works, $769,867; health department, $340,000; street lights and lighting public buildings, $300,000; park fund, $295,000; free library, $63,000. It has been found in practice, however, that very little is spared for permanent improvements from the ordinary revenues. There is an active movement in San Francisco looking to the acquisition of a municipal water system, the present supply being derived from a private corporation's reservoirs on the peninsula. The project contemplates the bringing of a larger supply from the Sierra Nevada Mountains, and the cost will probably reach $25,000,000. A two-thirds vote of the people is required to authorize a bond issue. In addition to the safeguards mentioned, the charter has created a civil service system based on merit, and it places great power in the hands of the mayor, who by his veto, which can be overriden only by a five-sixths vote of the board of supervisors, can prevent the adoption of separate items in the budget. He is also endowed with an extensive appointing power and the right to remove his own appointees, but the courts have curtailed the latter. The board of public works is an appointive body and has control of streets, sewers, buildings, and all public improvements.
Population. San Francisco has grown very rapidly. The population in 1860 was 56,802; in 1870, 149,473; in 1880, 233,959; in 1890, 298,997; in 1900, 342,782. One-third of the population in 1900 was of foreign birth. Of these the Germans numbered 35,194; Irish, 18,963; English, Scotch, and Welsh, 12,342; Italians, 7508; and Chinese, 13,954. The Chinese live in a distinct quarter, which has taken on many of the characteristics of their native land. Their isolation is entirely voluntary, and extends no further than the choice of a place of habitation. This quarter, known as ‘Chinatown,’ is freely visited by strangers, who are attracted by its Oriental aspect. There has been a great diminution in the number of Chinese in recent years, owing to the operation of the Exclusion Act. In 1890 there were 25,833 enumerated. Though this class of Orientals is diminishing, Japanese are coming in rapidly. They aggregate several thousand already, but, unlike the Chinese, they do not segregate themselves.
History. The first settlement in this locality was made on October 9, 1776, when two Franciscan monks, Palou and Cambon, established here an Indian mission, which they called San Francisco de Asisi, the name San Francisco having been previously given (in 1769) to the bay. About this mission, after the Mexicans secured control of California in 1822, a small village called Dolores grew up. The mission itself prospered until 1834, when it was secularized, and in a few years thereafter little remained but the adobe buildings. In 1836, near the best anchorage and three miles northeast of the mission, a small trading village, Yerba Buena, was founded, and from it the modern city really developed. In 1846 the United States took possession; and in the following year, its population then being 450, Yerba Buena exchanged its old name for that of the mission and the bay. On the discovery of gold in California in 1848 people of every social stratum and of many nationalities flocked hither, and the population of San Francisco increased with tremendous rapidity. In March, 1848, it was 800; in September, 1849, it was at least 10,000, in June, 1849, there were scarcely 50 houses; in September there were at least 500. The buildings were constructed of the most combustible materials and were huddled close together, so that the early years were marked by terrible ravages of fire. In the five big fires of December 14, 1849, May 4, 1850, June 14, 1850, May 2, 1851, and June 2, 1851, the property destroyed reached an aggregate value of $16,000,000. Owing to the wild and turbulent character of much of the population and the lax enforcement of law by the constituted authorities, vigilance committees were organized in 1851 and 1856, and for a time tried, convicted, and punished criminals in an extra-judicial manner. In 1854 overspeculation and a diminishing return from the mines caused a temporary check to the growth of the city; but in 1858 a new period of prosperity opened. San Francisco was incorporated in 1850 and in 1856 the city and the county were consolidated. An earthquake did some damage on October 21, 1868. In 1877-78 San Francisco was the centre of the movement known as Kearneyism in California. (See Kearney, Denis.) With the completion of the Union Pacific Railroad to the coast in 1869, the city entered upon a new period of prosperity.
Consult: Soule and others, The Annals of San Francisco (New York, 1855), for a graphic contemporary account of conditions during the period of excitement over the discovery of gold; also Royce, California (Boston, 1886); San Francisco and Its Resources (Denver, 1893); and a chapter in Powell (ed.), Historic Towns of the Western States (New York, 1901).
SAN FRANCISCO BAY. An inlet of the Pacific Ocean indenting the coast of California (Map: California, B 3). It is 42 miles long and from 5 to 12 miles wide, and runs nearly parallel with the coast, being separated from the ocean by a peninsula 7 miles wide, at the north end of which is the city of San Francisco. North of the city the Golden Gate, a passage one mile wide and 4 miles long, connects the bay with the ocean. San Francisco Bay is a beautiful sheet of water completely shut in by wooded mountains 1000 to over 2000 feet high. The water is generally shallow far out from the shores, but the Golden Gate and the part of the bay adjoining San Francisco as well as a central channel running through its whole length have a depth of 30 to over 100 feet. On the north the bay communicates with the Bay of San Pablo, which is of circular form with a diameter of 10 miles, and which further communicates through the Straits of Karquines with Suison Bay. The latter receives the Sacramento and San Joaquin rivers, so that the drainage of the entire western slope of the Sierra Nevada passes out through the Golden Gate.
