Riding Through the Census: San Francisco, 1846–1890

Script for the California Street Cable Car History Tour

1Welcome aboard! I'm Ana, your guide. Cable cars first climbed San Francisco's hills in 1873, pulled by a steel cable that runs in a slot under the street. But this city's story starts long before that. The Ohlone people have lived around this bay for thousands of years, and Ohlone communities still live in the Bay Area today. In 1776, Spain built a mission and a fort here. When United States forces took over in 1846, during the war with Mexico, the small town, then called Yerba Buena, had only a few hundred people.

2Then came gold. In January 1848, a worker found gold at Sutter's Mill, in the foothills east of Sacramento. In 1849, tens of thousands of "forty-niners" poured into California, many of them by ship through this harbor. They came from the eastern states and from Mexico, Chile, China, Australia and Europe. Hundreds of ships sat empty in the harbor after their crews ran off to the gold fields. By 1852, a state count found about 35,000 people in the city.

3California became a state in 1850, and San Francisco became the West's main port, banking center and factory town. Chinese immigrants worked in mines, on farms, in fisheries and in factories, and thousands helped build the Central Pacific Railroad. Many lived in Chinatown, which we are riding through right now. Once the transcontinental railroad was finished in 1869, travelers from the East could reach the Bay Area in about a week instead of months.

4Not every newcomer was welcomed. In the 1870s a long depression left many workers jobless, and some blamed Chinese workers for low wages. Anti-Chinese groups held rallies in the city. In 1882, Congress passed the Chinese Exclusion Act, which barred most Chinese laborers from entering the country. It was the first major federal law to shut out people of one nationality, and it was not repealed until 1943.

5Others kept arriving: Irish, German and Italian families, and people from across the United States, including young people leaving farms for city jobs. Census takers wrote down where every person was born, and in 1870 nearly half of San Franciscans had been born in another country. Hold on tight, the next hill is steep!