History of San Francisco 1: Birth of a City (1999)

Part 1 of 11 Episode from KRON-TV’s Decades series made in 1999 by Executive Producer Jim Swanson which uses original news footage and contemporary interviews to reflect on Bay Area history up to 1900, including issues relating to: development of the originally named settlement of Yerba Buena (the Spanish name of a native herb); the Gold Rush after James W. Marshall discovered gold at Sutter’s Mill in Coloma, California; the growth of San Francisco as a center for culture and the arts; public health and sanitation issues; fires which destroyed much of the city between 1849-51; the prevailing lawlessness and creation of private vigilante groups in the 1850s; the fatal duel between David C. Broderick (US Senator) and David S. Terry (Supreme Court Judge); the American Civil War; the impact of Irish, Italian, Jewish, African and Chinese Americans on San Francisco; the impressions of writer Mark Twain (lived and worked in San Francisco from 1864-66); the Comstock Lode Silver Rush in Nevada of 1859; the