An 1875 Photo Captures the Flavor of the Street Adjacent to Emperor Norton's Publisher and Printer

Here’s a stereocard with a view of Sansome Street, San Francisco, captured circa 1875 by the photographer J.J. Reilly (1838–1894). The view is looking south towards Market Street. (Click image for a zoomable version.)

“Sansome Street Looking to Market Street, San Francisco, Cal.,” stereoview, c.1875, by J.J. Reilly (1838–1994). Robert N. Dennis Collection of Stereoscopic Views, New York Public Library. Source: Wikimedia Commons

Here, to focus attention on the environs, is the righthand view presented on the card.

The Coso House, at 411 Sansome — southwest corner of Sansome and Commercial —is visible at center right. Emperor Norton lived a block-and-a-half to the west of this corner — on Commercial between Montgomery and Kearny. (Click image for a zoomable version.)

It appears that J.J. Reilly was standing in the middle of Sansome Street, at Sansome and Clay. Had Reilly, from this position, made a ⅓-turn to his right, he would have been looking directly behind him at a large 4-story building. This was the third Niantic Building, northwest corner of Sansome and Clay, recently completed in 1872. (Click image for a zoomable version.)

The Niantic Building (1872), at the northwest corner of Sansome (in the foreground) and Clay Streets, San Francisco. The building adjacent and to north, on Sansome, is 511 Sansome, at the southwest corner of Sansome and Merchant. Depending on when this photo was taken, Cuddy & Hughes and/or the Pacific Appeal newspaper may no longer have been operating out of the building. Photograph in the collection of the Bancroft Library at UC Berkeley. Source: Calisphere.

Remember that Coso House, a short block to the south, was at 411 Sansome.

The 3-story building visible immediately adjacent to the north of the 4-story Niantic Building was 511 Sansome — the southwest corner of Sansome and Merchant.

This little little building was home to the Pacific Appeal newspaper and Cuddy & Hughes printers.

The Pacific Appeal was a Black-owned and -operated abolitionist weekly that published the lion’s share — some 250 — of Emperor Norton’s proclamations between late 1870 and mid 1875.

Cuddy & Hughes was the printer of the Pacific Appeal.

Also: In 1870, around the same time that the Appeal started to publish Emperor Norton’s proclamations, Cuddy & Hughes became the designer and printer of the Emperor’s promissory notes. The firm produced several differently denominated notes for Emperor Norton between 1870 and 1875. The Emperor continued to use these until his Cuddy & Hughes supplies ran out and he took on a new printer, Charles A. Murdock, in 1878. (Learn much more about all this from our May 2017 article here.)

All of which to say: Emperor Norton would have put much shoe leather on the stretch of Sansome Street shown in J.J. Reilly’s c.1875 photograph.

In fact, the Emperor might often have traveled this very stretch, in the course of walking his latest Proclamation(s) over from his lodgings on Commercial Street to the Pacific Appeal at Sansome and Merchant — a block-and-a-half east on Commercial; left at Sansome; then two short blocks north to Merchant.

He knew this view very, very well.

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