When we designed the mural (1996 & ’97) I was the information source on this old creek. But I got the main thing wrong: A creek didn’t flow in the places where the Wiggle goes.

I hereby recant (as I’m fond of doing) in great detail (as I’m also fond of doing).

I thought that the Wiggle follows an old creek bed. Half right! Only the part from Duboce to Market Street actually does. Sort of. The other part, north and west of Duboce Park, was so sandy that nothing flowed on the surface except during storms. Sand soaks up a lot of water.

The 1876 Humphreys map shows a guess at the original course, ignoring the diversion it suffered in the late 1700s. See! Maps lie. The green rectangle labeled HOSPITAL became Duboce Park.

Luckily for my half that was right, an actual creek did emerge at the base of the southernmost dune, right at Duboce Avenue (about where Sanchez is).

Here’s a rundown of what I now know about that creek.

Location

It flowed from a spring that emitted water absorbed by the dunefield. From there it flowed strongly across what is now Market Street at about Church Street. It went down 15th Street at the base of a cliff (since removed) near Dolores Street. Then it went over to 14th and entered a freshwater marsh, which in turn flowed into the tidal waterway called Mission Creek at 14th and Folsom, about where Rainbow Grocery is today.

The Creek’s Past

Before I address the tricky matter of its name, here’s the creek’s prehistory: Going back 10,000 years, the bedrock valley that’s below the sand was an actual creekbed flowing all the way from Golden Gate Park down to the Mission District. It was the ice age and the dunefield hadn’t formed, yet. Starting about 5,000 years ago, a “village” called Chutchui was along the creek. It was actually more of a campsite used during summers by Yelamu Ohlone indians.

The creek’s brief history: The strength of the spring was Captain Anza’s cue to locate the Mission just south of the dunes. They needed enough water to irrigate crops and orchards. The creek was channeled almost immediately.

According to research by Christopher Richard, an irrigation ditch was dug to divert the creek southward from the source. The couple hundred residents of Chutchui were conscripted as the first labor for the Franciscan padres who founded Mission Dolores. Indians were called “diggers” but probably not for their new pastime as ditchdiggers. More likely, it’s because they made baskets from rhizomes dug out of the creek banks.

The Creek Today

The January 1941 flood on Market Street. This was 31 years before the Muni Metro and 60 or so years before the vent was installed that acts as a drain into the station today.

Today, the creek flows in the ground, through fill soils and in the sewers. In storms, the creek returns. When the sewers fill, the water flows along the gutters. At least twice a decade, a bigger storm fills the whole street with water. A tunnel entrance at Duboce and a vent at Church and Market allow it into the subway—something designers may regret some day. The Muni Metro, at both the Van Ness and Church stations, closes for a few hours while the water gets pumped out again.

The Creek’s Future

Eventually, the pavement will wash away and the creek will return. Simple as that. Whether the creek is restored by design or by the caprices of extreme weather is up to us.

Help Name the Creek!

The case for ‘Dolores Creek’

The creek remains unnamed. Anza called it Dolores Spring (Ojo de Agua de los Dolores) because the day (in 1776) was the Feast of Sorrows (dolores). His geographer, Father Font, called the creek Dolores Creek (Arroyo Dolores) in his journal from the same expedition. We could simply use this name, except it would be confusing: Within months of Anza and Font, Father Palou (a geographic ignoramus) applied the name to another creek flowing where 18th Street is—and it stuck. Using ‘Dolores Creek’ would require also renaming the 18th Street creek.

The case for ‘San Souci Creek’

In the winter of 1861 to ’62, the largest storms ever recorded caused deep pools of water to collect in the dunefield. One covered 25 acres, in the Panhandle Park (which didn’t yet exist). When the sand gave way, slurry gushed furiously along the creek’s original bed. The deluge was so strong that it crushed Francois Pioche’s mansion to matchsticks. He was one of SF’s top financiers and his ill-fated L’Hermitage “guest cottage” was one of the few houses nearby at that time.

The popular (but incorrect) notion was that the floodwaters had come from a different over-filled lake: Sans (or San) Souci Lake was where the low part of Divisadero Street is now. It lapped the doorsills of the San Souci Roadhouse at what is now Fulton and Divisadero. As a result of this storied flood, the creek valley became known as Sans (or San) Souci Valley until at least 1920. The valley extended to the Panhandle and Lone Mountain. It was graded for roads and developed starting in the 1870s.

Perhaps the creek should be called San Souci Creek, as I did on my early Thinkwalks flyers. I like that name because sans souci means carefree in French.

It was often spelled to match the San in ‘San Francisco’. Since someone saw fit to drop an ‘s’, I hope to drop an ‘e’ and make Carefree Valley into Carfree Valley someday! I predict spelling-wars if the creek is named San Souci.

The case for ‘Chutchui Creek’

When I pose the question of naming to folks on my walking tours, the consensus is often to name it for the Yelamu campsite. Sadly, I have little information about its location(s) and less about how we came to know the name.

Have another name for the creek?

Please contribute your comments and suggestions below!

Where was I during the earthquake? In the bathroom at National Airport, just after returning from Boston. Many people around me were alarmed. But to be honest, I thought it was more exciting than frightening. It was actually sort of gentle, and different from what I had imagined: more rocking than shaking, and inspiring—to think of the earth as dynamic like that.

I stayed in the airport, thinking about aftershocks and the fact that I would be better off there than in either the Metro or my brick highrise building. When I finally decided to leave, the Metro was running slow (literally, 15 miles/hour) and was rush-hour crowded because so many office workers had been sent home. The fountain park near my house was packed with hundreds of people sitting on the benches or the grass, working on laptops, reading Kindles, or just sitting. Because it was a beautiful day? Or because they felt safer there?

I found some damage in my apt—pictures askew, vases and other small items knocked down, and my childhood globe thrown to the floor (so appropriate!). The delicate glass flowers I had carefully carried home without damage all the way from the Ukraine were broken. Nothing material lasts forever.

Hope everyone is well.
Love, Joan

The Pressure wave arrives first and then the Shear wave. Pay close attention next time you feel a quake. If you can distinguish the two, the quake is coming from far off.

Sounds like a perfect mix for her rite of passage—especially since she’s considering moving west. I wonder how the glass flowers collection at Harvard’s Natural History Museum fared.

We are definitely silly to take this planet for granted. Humans and other species have had mostly a very hard time here over the eons, and even if we weren’t making a mess of it, we’d be up against a scary prospectus.

There were three times in my life that I felt a bodily sense of the massive, rumbling rock we live on: the 1989 Loma Prieta Quake; witnessing a roaring, glowing, lathery lava fountain on the Big Island of Hawai’i in the 90s; and the 2001 Leonid meteor showers. The meteor shower was almost as good as seeing the whole planet from space, like on my Earth Flag, and feeling its smallness.

I recorded my feelings about the Leonids in these four dense paragraphs, written shortly afterwards:

The meteor shower! The meteor shower! Wowoowowow it was amazing! After past attempts, I was pretty pessimistic about the chances for seeing a good show, but it was superb. Allison drove her powerful but very compact car with six of us to the ridge of Panoramic Highway on the way up to Mount Tam—the same place I went for the Perseid meteor showers in about 1996. There were so many people, not just the six in our tiny car but in other cars going up there, that the Marin cops were out directing traffic in the middle of nowhere at 1:45 in the morning. Traffic was backed up for miles and the mountain roads were lined with parked cars in every conceivably parkable spot.

Even on the way there we began to see, out the car windows, amazing streaks of light across the sky. By the time we plopped our tarp down and got under our blankets, we had already seen a dozen of ’em. Once were were lying down, the true spectacle was revealed, interspersed with the wackiest falling star humor (such as singing “100 Bottles of Beer on the Wall” but with stars and not knowing what number to start at, or discussing the difficulties Orion would have with his pants once the three bright stars of his belt fell off).

There were meteors every second or so—good, long, bright ones! The percentage of spectacular ones was very high (more than half) and the percentage with glowing tails was above 90%. Some were so intense, they seemed to explode and go out with a flash at the end of their streak. Others (very few) were dim and slow with no tail. I developed the hypothesis that the slow ones (going in all different directions) were the ones being just pulled in by gravity as the earth shot past them, while the fast-burners with glowing tails (all coming from the direction of Leo) were the ones the earth’s atmosphere slammed into head-on. It’s like the difference between the raindrops that hit you when you are sitting in the bed of the pickup truck compared to the raindrops hitting the front windshield.

After watching one, two, or even up to five per second shoot across the sky around 3:00 a.m., we started realizing that the length and directions of the streaks were adhering to a pattern that made sense only from the perspective of being on a large ball flinging through space. So we changed position to take advantage of that phenomenon, wheeling around to face the southeast, where the constellation Leo was up about 40 degrees in the sky. This fried my brains on the spot, as the view was suddenly like the driving-in-a-storm model, exactly as if we were in a car looking out the front windshield at night with snowflakes streaming in our headlights, albeit at a slower pace. The streaks were all zooming out, away from the Lion, as if from a reverse “vanishing point” of origin. Thus the name of the shower: the Leonids. That is the set of stars the earth is “facing” as it wizzes through space at this time of year, in this part of its orbit around the sun. I have never before had such a sense of being on a rock moving through space! Unbelievable! This was easily the best night sky phenomenon I have experienced, even better than northern lights, moonbows, sunsets, or rotating gala event spotlights!

As mentioned in my previous post, the access to old articles has increased amazingly. And that access helped me to break this story.

Or at least rediscovered…

A 25-acre Phelps’ Lake in San Francisco’s Panhandle?

I’ve just solved a mystery described in my previous research on the south area of Divisadero street. Back when it was a winding path through the dunes, Devisadero, as it was known, connected the Mission Dolores to the Presidio. The incorrect story had settled into this version over the years: San Souci Lake, located at Divisadero north of Hayes Street, burst its banks in 1862 and flowed to 7th and Market where it destroyed Pioche’s house—an impossibility by gravity alone, since it’s a different watershed! Thus the mystery. But now I’ve found that a second lake existed along Divisadero, just to the south. I see that my conjecture was correct: the flood was toward the Mission Dolores, instead, and destroyed a different residence of Francois Pioche than his 7th Street location.

My newfound solution clears up some mysteries and debunks errors found in the files of many libraries and archives, biographies,  articles (pdf) and books (search the linked page for ‘San Souci’). Of course, my discovery creates other layers of mystery.

The topic connects with the gigantic storms of 1861-62 that I’ve been studying. I just sent a letter to Janet Sowers, who is the hydrologist in charge of the SF-PUC historic watershed map, asking her to consider including the lakes on the map.

Click to enlarge. The brownish, Y-shaped lake at the bottom, right of this detail is Laguna Honda, but what are the two long lakes in the area between the "mission mountains" and Lone Mountain (with cross at top)? And is the flowy thing crossing Market Street at about church street the flood path described in the articles below? What do you think? Please add your comments at the end of this blog post.

The two Divisadero lakes may be considered “vernal” lakes, meaning formed by seasonal rains, but they may have lasted years or come back every year. To be clear, the two lakes are Phelps’ Lake and San Souci Lake. Phelps’ Lake seems to have existed only briefly—possibly only a few months in 1862, but probably also repeatedly after rains in other years. It may be the lake shown in the middle of a birds-eye view by George Goddard (detail shown).

San Souci Lake may have existed for a few years or even many years. In this post, I’ll describe full chapter and verse of evidence for Phelps’ Lake only, as I have covered some aspects of San Souci Lake previously. I think San Souci was a more enduring lake, and was mentioned more often in later documents, but it’s not to be found on any image I know—unless it’s also one of the Goddard map anomalies shown here in the detail. San Souci Lake is, however, mentioned some in the articles presented below, and guess-drawn in on my old blog post where I began describing my research on this topic.

These two lakes were apparently (based on 1850s coast surveys) separated by a linear dune about 60 feet high running along what’s now Hayes Street to the west from Alamo Square.

Evidence for Phelps’ Lake

This serious accumulation of water may have only existed after strong rains, in varying shapes depending on dune shifts and rain depths. As far as I can tell, it (or something like it) was only recorded by Americans as having existed after the big storms of 1827 (mentioned in Article 4, below) and the extreme months of deluge in 1861-62. I’ve found specific dating of its presence for about three months, after which it was reported to have drained suddenly and catastrophically on March 15, 1862 at 1:00 a.m.

I’ve found four written mentions, all quite detailed and provided below, of a long lake, sometimes linked to the Abner Phelps home, or as threatening the Francois Pioche home. It’s sometimes described as in the Mission mountains—the term frequently used for hills in the outskirts of early San Francisco. The Phelps home still stands, though it has been moved a block or so from its original location at what is now Divisadero and Oak streets. (Perhaps the move was in reaction to the formation of the lake.) The Pioche home location is still unclear, but it was near Church & Market streets of today. Pioche was a financier and owner of Market Street Railway. By January 19, 1862, a long lake one quarter mile wide had formed in the dunes. The details of its demise are better accounted than its location.

This account of a long lake may clear up the heretofore unexplained body of water of that approximate shape and location drawn on a very detailed George Goddard birds-eye view. The Goddard view was published in 1868.

I found it most useful to refer to the Coast Survey of 1857 & ’59 to see the land forms that controlled the water flow at the time. Note the long dune west from the Orphan Asylum, along what is now Page Street, and another parallel dune, as mentioned, north of that at about Hayes. The gap in the Page dune at Fillmore would have allowed the water to flow toward Pioche’s property near 14th & Market, although I don’t know the exact spot of his home, yet, so it could have been a little farther north.

Many later sources incorrectly describe the flow from the burst Phelps Lake as having been from San Souci Lake, and as having inundated Pioche’s other property at 7th and Mission. They are proven wrong by these articles.

Article 1

January 19, 1862 article in the Daily Alta California
CITY ITEMS [see 2nd item]
A New Lake — The recent heavy rains have formed a lake of considerable size in a basin high up in the Mission mountains, north-east of the Mission Dolores, and about midway between the same and the Protestant Orphan Asylum. So great was the pressure of the accumulated waters, early yesterday morning, that the residents in the vicinity procured a gang of twenty laborers and proceeded to strengthen the weak parts to prevent a crevasse and overflow. The danger threatened the elegant grounds and residence of Mr. Pioche, formerly occupied by the late Mr. Hart [located somewhere above Dolores street current and below what's now the Lower Haight], as well as the residences of Mr. Haight, and some six or seven others. Work was kept up without intermission all day ; and although the waters had subsided since, watch was maintained last night. The above lake, we are informed, is nearly a mile long, by over a quarter of a mile wide ; but being located amidst the sand-hills, it is expected it will subside in a few days. [It didn't subside until it suddenly broke through the reinforced sandbank March 15, 1862 at 1:00 a.m., based on the articles below.] The gullies and basins of the Mission mountains and large sandy tract west of the city, between them and the Lone Mountain, are all full of water, and an immense volume of water is pouring into the Lobos Creek, and the various tributaries of Mission Creek ; but, beyond the overflow at the Willows, little or no damage has as yet occurred.

The above article describes the location as NE of the Mission but there is no basin NE of the Mission, so I assume they mean NW. People in San Francisco were often quite vague on locations “out behind the Mission” or “near the Orphan Asylum.” A line drawn equidistant from the Asylum and the Mission crosses through the basin at the Panhandle, right beside the Phelps house. This article doesn’t mention Phelps, but a follow-up article, below, seems to identify this lake with Phelps. The exact match between the further details in the two articles makes it clear that the two article reference the same lake, and the more accurate one (implied in the article to be “inspected” by the author—maybe in a visit to the site) says the lake was half a mile west of the Asylum, putting it near the Phelps home and in the same watershed as the threatened Hart/Pioche home.

Article 2 — a tiny blurb

January 23, 1862 article in the Daily Alta California
CITY ITEMS [see last item]
Drained: the lake that formed in the Mission hills behind Mr Pioche’s residence has been successfully drained from its northwest extremity.

Article 2 seems to indicate that the lake level was lowered in a controlled way, although the use of ‘NW’ seems another directional mistake. I explain both mistakes in the above two articles as follows: People thought of Mission Bay as the “bottom” of the map, since the area was always approached from that side by SF residents. So calling “up” north, when it’s actually west, would explain why the lowest elevation edge would be called the NW extremity and why the position would be described as NE of the Mission.

As for the lake being drained: More extreme rains followed, and water must have risen again, judging by articles 3 and 4. Also, the surrounding hills gradually released rainwater and would have refilled the lake, regardless of new rain.

Article 3

March 15, 1862 article in the Sacramento Daily Union
The Reported Triumph at Manassas — Excitement and Rejoicing — Destructive Flood — Arrivals. [see 4th paragraph]
A lake about half a mile long and a quarter of a mile wide, among the hills near the Mission Dolores, broke through its bank at one o’clock this morning, and precipitated itself into the valley below, utterly crushing and destroying the splendid residence of M. Pioche, with the fine garden, stable and carriage houses, and carrying away one hundred feet of the Market Street Railroad [which ran on Valencia Street]. The grounds and gardens of Woodward are damaged to the amount of four thousand dollars, being buried in nearly five feet of sand and mud. Pioche’s damage is twenty thousand dollars. Great damage was done to the gardeners, whose early crops were nearly ready for market, and which are now covered with two or three feet of water. The total damage by the flood is estimated at fifty thousand dollars. The persons in Pioche’s house narrowly escaped with their lives. There are fears that another lake in the vicinity [likely San Souci Lake] will break through, and workmen are embanking it.

The above is a short enhancement to the below article, which contains a lot of detail

Article 4

March 15, 1862 article in the Daily Alta California
CITY ITEMS [see 6th item]
Terrible Flood — Destruction of Property.
Early yesterday morning news was brought to town that an immense amount of property had been destroyed, and more seriously injured, by a flood in the neighborhood of the Mission Dolores. The information had not been exaggerated, and to-day the scene of the disaster corroborates the statement.

ORIGIN OF INUNDATION.
In the coast range of hills, to the northwest of the Mission, are, at this season, some ten ponds of greater or lesser dimensions. (Incredible!) One of these, situated in a valley one half mile west of the Protestant Orphan Asylum, has been known as Phelp’s (sic) Lake, an ex-Assembly man of that name occupying a residence at its head. This body of water, up to yesterday, embraced an area of twenty-five acres, and was about fifteen feet in depth. For a long time past fears have been entertained of this superincumbent mass of water bursting through and deluging the valuable real and personal property lying below. For the purpose of avoiding so serious a calamity, some six weeks ago a dam was constructed, and, adjoining thereto, a ditch cut to lead off gradually the superfluous water of the lake. [See Article 2 of January 23, above.] This dam has been pretty closely inspected and guarded, and, Thursday evening, there appeared to be no immediate danger of its giving way. The lake, at this point, was nearly fifteen feet in depth.

THE FLOOD.
About midnight F. L. A. Pioche, who occupied the elegant gothic cottage (not a cottage by today’s use of the word) a quarter of a mile below the foot of the lake (only 1/4? Was his house near the dune gap at what became Fillmore and Haight?), was about retiring, when, hearing the sound of rushing waters, went out to discover the cause. He at once saw an unusual quantity of water on his grounds, and hastened back, aroused the sleeping inmates (old term for occupants), who had barely time to escape before the torrent swept under the foundations of the house, which almost instantaneously settled and crushed to atoms. The invading stream had divided above the house, one branch pouring down the road in front and the other in the rear of the grounds. The various outhouses [outbuildings]—stable, carriage house, etc.—were first overwhelmed and completely wrecked. The beautiful yard immediately before the dwelling, on which Mr. Pioche had expended some ten or twelve thousand dollars, was cut up by the circling eddies into trenches, and to render the work of demolition complete, the banks caved, carrying with them much valuable shrubbery. The antics which the waters played were indeed curious. They did not sweep off the building, but undermined it in such a manner as to sink, and crush it like an egg shell. Of course, the destruction of furniture, and other contents of the dwelling, was heavy. In addition to costly furniture ruined or seriously damaged, a large number of superb paintings, elegant ware, cabinets of minerals, shells, vases, mirrors, frames and innumerable articles of vertu, rare and costly, were ruined. No value in figures can be put upon these latter— they cannot be replaced with money. Mr. Pioche seems to regret their loss more than all other effects destroyed. The house had lately been repaired, repainted, and greatly improved, and the grounds constantly and carefully cultivated. Incontestible proofs of the resistless force of the stream are seen in the bulky articles which were swept down the roaring current. A handsome piano forte was borne below nearly to the Railway [at Valencia Street], and two beautiful vehicles carried out of the carriage house, and buried beneath the water and sand. A number of casks and barrels, some filled with choice liquors, were swept quite down to the flat, and one carried as far as Judge Cowles’ residence, on McLaren [now named what?], near Mission street. The costly silverware supposed at first to be lost, was subsequently recovered. The total losses sustained by Mrs. Hart, the owner [actually former owner's widow, I think, and apparently still living on the land] of the residence, and Mr. Pioche, in furniture, pictures, improvements on grounds, etc., cannot fall short of $30,000.

FURTHER DAMAGES BELOW.
The stream, after leaving the above scene of devastation, took a circuitous route for another quarter of a mile, when it encountered the kitchen, and out-houses of the public house [saloon] called L’Ermitage. [Pioche's home near the Mission was often later referred to as the Hermitage, perhaps related to this saloon, which may have been his, too. The 1864 Lang directory lists "l'ermitage Saloon" at SW corner Dolores and Market, but I suspect it was not right on the corner.] The soil here, as above, is very sandy, and vast pieces of the banks crumbled and fell into the stream. These deposits were hurried down to the many patches of cultivated ground of the gardeners, causing the ruin of their crops of vegetables, just ready for the market. The tract immediately lying on the railway [at Valencia Street between 14th & 15th] was covered with water on the previous day [March 14] to the depth of three or four feet [Other reports, in the Daily Alta of March 13, describe the serious flooding in Hayes Valley and areas along the railway that existed before this inundation], but this has now disappeared, and a sterile sheet of sand been substituted in its stead.

BREAKS IN THE RAILWAY.
The tremendous current rushing right against the railroad embankment at right eagles, speedily forced a passage through it, leaving a chasm of ninety feet wide, but the rails withstood the pressure and were not carried off. The Superintendent was promptly advised of the accident, and at an early hour had a strong force at work repairing damages. By noon to-day, the trains will be running as usual.

OTHER EFFECTS OF THE FLOOD.
Just east of the railway the stream washed unceremoniously into the magnificent grounds of Mr. R.B. Woodward, tearing up fences, uprooting shrubbery and covering the earth with heavy deposits of sand and slime to the depth of three feet. The gardens [locations unknown] of Mr. Judson, of the Chemical Works, of Dr. Ashe, and others contiguous to the railway, have been greatly damaged. Between Phelps’ Lake and the Sans Souci House is another pond of five acres [called San Souci Lake, generally]. For a number of weeks past this has been full, and the water has encroached into the house itself [shown at the north corner of the small triangular basin, on the Coast Surveys], where it stands some three feet in depth. There has been danger that this, too, would break through its sandy barrier and precipitate itself into the basin below. Thursday night, when the flood came, many supposed that the swollen stream derived its supply from this source. This, however, was not true, but at 12 o’clock, yesterday, an outlet was made, and the superabundance of water gradually drained off. At sunset, last evening, this lake [San Souci] had fallen about one foot. No damage is apprehended of more destruction of property, as pretty much all the harm which could be done was done previously. Besides, a gang of men are at the breach checking any great efflux at this point. The depth of water in this pond is fourteen feet. What was Phelps’ Lake last evening presented a bed of black, earthy deposits, with a small creek coursing along the southerly bank of sand. [Wow! Cole Valley and the hills were still saturated, oozing that rainwater.] It appears that this tract has not been deemed arable land in the dry season hitherto. Mr. Phelps, however, believes that it is now improved so materially by these deposits, as to be tillable this season. We learn that in 1827, which was a season similar to the present, one of the numerous lakes in this vicinity broke through its confines and flooded the country below, causing great damage to such lands as were then under cultivation. And furthermore, that these lower grounds were, at that distant period, buried under masses of sand to the depth of several feet. Various opinions an entertained as to the immediate breaking through of the water at this last scene of destruction. Some aver that the bank was cut by some cowardly miscreants, whilst others assert that the gradual yielding of the sand, the waters of the lake easily percolated through, and so started the rush which only ended with the drainage of the pond itself.

The Goddard sepia map can be seen and explored in full resoultion and zoom on David Rumsey’s site. It is most interesting that the ocean road cuts right through the lake in Goddard’s print, and that a second lake, not looking much like the precise location of San Souci, but perhaps San Souci Lake expanded by the storms, is beside it. The ocean road that cuts through the lake is the road that was used to go west from Hayes Valley on McAllister street, veering onto Fulton street near where it passes the San Souci Roadhouse at the Devisadero Road (archaic spelling). Although the scaling is off, the two long lakes shown seem to be in the approximate location of the Panhandle, between Lone Mountain and the San Miguel Hills. But the key locating feature is the ocean road.

Pioche purchased the property that was destroyed from the widowed Mrs. Hart in 1857 and and sold at least part of it again in October 1862 to the Pacific Homestead Union (a developer, I suspect), to be subdivided—as “unions” are wont to do?! The Daily Alta carried an ad for selling or leasing the premises “to homestead unions and others” and called it “lately the residence of Pioche”, “near the Mission Dolores”, “Beyond the Willows” property. The Oct. 25th issue says it’s Pacific Homestead Union Property now, to be subdivided into lots of 50 x 114 ft. at $140 for each lot.

Pioche himself was in Europe and/or New York for much of that year, starting April 21 through at least September. Thanks to the brand new transcontinental telegraph, he was able to keep in touch from NY. Pioche was, incidentally, one of the few major figures involved at a high level in the early development of San Francisco who was living openly, by some reports, as a gay man, with his partner Robinson.

The last bit of this story, that I’ve seen so far, is reported a few months later when crews sent by various “entertainment houses” to fix the destroyed paths and roads near Pioche’s got into fights. One guy (Dennis Meagher) killed another (Francis N. Jay) with a shovel on May 16th, and the trial was covered a few times (August 6 & Sept 1, 1862 Daily Alta).

There you have it. A new lake documented in all ways except what we really wish for: a photo! What do you think? Do you have any specifics about San Souci to share? If you read this far, you’re a “serious researcher” and I’d love to know your comments, below.

As always, I held off on canceling the tour on Tuesday. I hoped there would be a gap in the rain. I was right, but more than right, I was using a weather prediction system for local San Francisco short-term planning that I’ve now tested enough to share around. Feel free to pass the link along.

The tour ended at 2pm. At 2:20, this is how the oncoming rain looked, sweeping in from the west. Good timing!

The tour only had six people, but they all came with a can-do attitude, knowing there was a continuing chance of wet. Just as the tour began, a short drizzle gave us a moment to wonder, but then it quietly made way for a dry tour. Then, exactly as the tour ended, the drizzle started up again, this time leading into a serious rain for hours. You can see the serious rain heading into SF on this snapshot, taken from the radar website that I used, among other tools, to predict. You can also see the storm that spritzed SF just prior to the tour, drifting out past Modesto.

Often Walk the Wiggle tours attract large crowds, but being in the middle of a weekday, fewer folks were available. This can be a real treat, as it was on this occasion. Smaller groups tend to be more excitable, especially when they’re as curious and locally knowledgeable as these guys were. (I try to keep crowd size fairly low on all tours, but it can be difficult when people forget to RSVP!)

Thinkwalks, especially Wiggle walks, cover material in no particular order, because that makes it possible to keep things interesting for everyone, especially me. If I followed a sequence from an outline, it would become blah for me, which would make it blah for you. So it’s especially nice to have a very small tour like this one, where the agenda is set by something more like conversation, and less by a presentation. Often more material gets covered, but even when less gets covered (tangents, ya know), I’ve found that the knowledge retention is better.

For those of you on this tour, this blog post can act as an ongoing virtual space where you can post tour follow-up discussion using the comment reply form, below.

For everyone else, this post is an announcement of the new Thinkwalks resource page on local weather prediction!

On my tours I almost always refer to the Lower Haight neighborhood and Panhandle area of San Francisco as “San Souci Valley.” That’s the name used until the 1920s or so. I started being curious about it from an old and obviously unreliable map.

This was the map I saw, showing few buildings, and making "San Souci" look nearly as important as the Mission Dolores itself. Other than misspelled French for "carefree," I had no idea what "San Souci" was. And maps of the time are little help.

This is the bizarre story of this little-used old moniker, the maps that make it fun, and discovery—yours and ongoing.

Just so you have the context, the streets through the Western Addition and Panhandle areas were graded about 1870, as a result of expansion fueled by the silver boom of the Comstock Load. Before that huge development project, the area was remote and difficult to pass through. It was windy, sandy, and generally tough going for horse or human. North of the east-west dune at Page Street, it was all truly boonies.

The 1857-59 map shows what was probably an orchard entirely filling the low spot that may have been the lake. The vertical white bars indicate the line of Divisadero Street.

But there was one spot of relief. On the line of Divisadero near Hayes, there was probably a triangular lake for a time. And on its north point, at what’s now Fulton and Divisadero, stood a refuge from the nasty wind: San Souci Roadhouse. When I first saw a map with a building (image above, right), created in 1853 by SF City Surveyor Clement Humphreys, I was merely confused. Hills marked with the old hatchers instead of contour lines were unclear and locations were inexact. On the 1851 city line (currently Divisadero St.) and on the weaving, dotted line trail from the Mission to the Presidio, stood a building. Yet another map (below) from 1861 showed property lines marked with family names, so I thought San Souci could be a name.

When I first started the Walk the Wiggle tour, I contacted a local author, Dan San Souci, hoping he’d help clear up the name’s source. He said his family wasn’t old SF stock, and he didn’t have any ideas for my search, though he took a nice photo when he came on my tour.

Thanks to the digitization of old library books, I was able to find a reference that explained the San Souci Roadhouse as the source of the name, and then I found a booklet created for Mercy Terrace (the old SP Railroad hospital at Fell and Baker) which detailed the San Souci property. This led me to the California Historical Society’s original copy of a lease from San Souci. I’ll go into that whole angle a lot more in a future post, but I do want to give you one more sweet glimpse of the roadhouse just before it was torn down in the 1920s.

Jesse Brown Cook took this photo after other buildings had encroached on the original roadhouse. Storefronts had also been added. If you know of any photos before all these changes, I'd love to hear!

…probably the best known landmark of Divisadero street in the pioneer days was the old San Souci roadhouse which stood on the east side of a pretty little lake that then filled the space from Fulton to about midway between Hayes and Fell streets.

Jesse Brown Cook took this photograph before the much-altered roadhouse was finally demolished.

(The roadhouse was at the location of the current pet salon at 1333 Fulton Street.)

One night in the winter of 1861-’62—the wettest San Francisco had ever known—the lake overflowed its sandy banks and the water rolled down the valley and into the Mission, cutting its channel ever deeper as it went. In the morning there was only a fraction of the old lake left and the glory of San Souci had materially departed.

The blue dotted line is the approx. path an overflow must have taken, passing the Page Street dune through a gap at what is now Fillmore Street. The purple squares are approximate Pioche home locations. The existence of a “San Souci Lake” is based only on the one source: Morphy. It’s shape is interpolated from the 1859 Coast Survey map.

Morphy goes on: But, down in the valley, in the beautiful block bounded by Seventh and Eighth streets. Mission and Howard, the basin that had formed the lovely gardens of the Pioche home was a sea of water. In its center, with only the cupolas and the roof and part of the second-story visible…

And, in fact, I’ve seen a photo claiming to be “Pioche’s Pond” with the house in deep water—I cannot recall where, but I believe I could find it again.

Morphy’s description of the event is repeated (with or without attribution) in many locations, including in various books, and everyplace from the California Historical Society’s card catalog to an article a few months ago in the Alamo Square Neighborhood Association newsletter. (Look in the right column on the page after the roadhouse photo. Note the doubly inaccurate phrase “Francis Pioche family.” His name was Francois, and he had no family. It was believed and apparently accepted that he lived with his male lover.)

Yes, history is becoming easier than ever to research and serve to the neighbors.

The only problem is that it’s impossible. The block on Mission between 7th and 8th Streets lies in an entirely different watershed from the one San Souci occupies, and it’s not in the “Mission” as claimed. Unless a tunnel existed through Alamo Square into Hayes Valley, the described flooding could not have reached to that property.

Pioche was a lesser-known but major influence in San Francisco. Perhaps his suicide or homosexuality reduced interest in him by period biographers.

As it happens, I’ve seen records of at least three different properties owned by Pioche (Warning: Numerous details in the linked biography are incorrect, as you’ll see just by the storm date given). Pioche’s business location at Clay & Montgomery, may have been owned by him and he seems to have owned dwellings at 806 Stockton, on Dolores just south of the Mission itself, and the block mentioned above, at Mission and 7th.

Could it have been his home on Dolores that was flooded? Perhaps, but the scant and questionable information I’ve found as to its location said it was a short distance south of the Mission Dolores, which would put it just beyond the reach of a flood coming down San Souci Valley…unless the flood was so strong as to surge over the farmed rise upon which the Mission itself sits. Not impossible.

The Dolores location seems to have been sometimes called Pioche’s “Hermitage.”

If you are inclined to investigating mysteries, I’d welcome your participation in this. My friend and neighbor, Chris Dichtel, has found that there were court cases about property damage relating to this flood of water from San Souci Lake. If you want to dig in deeper, let me know and I’ll give you all the (few) other details I have, along with ideas of how to get more. I’d save the fun of discovery for myself, but I have a heap of other stuff pulling on me at the moment. Of course, if you discover the answer, I’ll quote and credit you, and probably cook dinner for you, too!

Interesting, you’re already saying,  how water from a storm, after passing through a lake, becomes known as water “from” that lake. Right? Morphy again:

Some time after the San Souci lake overflowed its banks in 1862 and created the Pioche pond in the Mission, a family named Bulger [don't trust spelling, as it's from OCR] moved out that way and made their home near the gap cut by the flood water.

Somehow I don’t think the gap referred to was a gap in the huge serpentine rock ridge between San Souci and Hayes valleys! The gap must’ve been down through the dunes in the Wiggle.

Turns out Bonnie was writing for a blog owned by Discovery, called Treehugger. A few others have picked up on it as a result of the post, including some sites I’ve never heard of here and here and here and here and here and I’m outta breath.

In fact, if you were coming here to hunt, as so many people have done over the last five millennia, you might consider covering your head with a deer costume, complete with antlers. It could allow you to settle in among the herd at close quarters and have your pick of the animals for your village’s upcoming feast!

According to all the journals and reports from early European visitors, wildlife were abundant to such a degree that it was sometimes possible to reach out and grab an animal: a quail, a fox, even a deer. But the people who called this area home for 4,500 years (or more) hunted carefully and with elaborate ritual that protected the many local species from over-hunting. The Yelamu family groups and tribelets that populated the seasonal villages at each end of Divisadero—Chutchui near the south end and Petlenuc near the north—followed a complex set of rules that included fasting, sweats in a lodge, abstinence, and appeals to family-specific and activity-based totem animal spirits before they could draw a single arrow across a bow.

The bow came into the lives of these people, often called Ohlone Indians, 1500 years ago. According to the physical anthropology available, the introduction of bow and arrow represents the only known major cultural shift in the extremely stable societies of Central California during the hundreds of generations during which they sparsely occupied this land. This represents a stability equal to or surpassing all other known examples of human societies, which usually shift dramatically after only a few generations.

The shift to arrows from the use of spears represents a major transition in the rigidly followed local rituals, but not as dramatic, of course, as the transition that occurred when European cultures arrived in the 18th Century. Both the Indians and the Whites used trapping and nets for quail, salmon and other birds and fish, but the Spanish, Russian, French and English who came ashore brought firearms.

The first encounters between these old and new hunting technologies, and their accompanying rituals, must have been astounding to witnesses. In one passage from Charles Darwin’s travel journals (I was so enthralled by it, I don’t mind that it represents an encounter in an entirely different—and seemingly more disputatious—part of the world), he writes:

An European labours under great disadvantages, when treating with savages like these, who have not the least idea of the power of fire-arms. In the very act of levelling his musket, he appears to the savage far inferior to a man armed with a bow and arrow, a spear, or even a sling. Nor is it easy to teach them our superiority except by striking a fatal blow.…

Captain Fitz Roy on one occasion, being very anxious from good reasons to frighten away a small party, first flourished a cutlass near them, at which they only laughed; he then twice fired his pistol close to a native.

The man both times looked astounded, and carefully but quickly rubbed his head; he then stared awhile, and gabbled to his companions; but he never seemed to think of running away. We can hardly put ourselves in the position of these savages, and understand their actions. …when a savage sees a mark struck by a bullet, it may be some time before he is able at all to understand how it is effected; for the fact of a body being invisible from its velocity, would perhaps be to him an idea totally inconceivable. … Certainly I believe that many savages of the lowest grade, such as these of Tierra del Fuego, have seen objects struck, and even small animals killed by the musket, without being in the least aware how deadly an instrument it is.

The technology was the least of the differences between early American and European cultures; as Darwin’s final sentence so completely illustrates, the two concepts of causality and even of death were essentially different.

Long after the few hundred occupants of the San Francisco Peninsula were supplanted, miserably, by the thousands of Europeans and Americans who came, hunting on Divisadero continued.

After the Gold Rush, for decades, a lodge stood near what is now the intersection of Fulton and Divisadero Streets. There’s a pet grooming service there now, Kate’s, across Fulton from Café Abir. The lodge, known by the more typical San Francisco term “roadhouse”, was called the San Souci, a misspelling of the French words for carefree. The valley it occupied was, for the better part of a century, named after it.

And, to my water-loving mind, most important, there appears to have been a San Souci Lake, as well. This lake, apparently spanning a triangular area for a couple blocks along what is now the low part of Divisadero, and sweeping toward the intersection of Baker and Grove, is mentioned in only one place I know of. Edward Morphy wrote a newspaper column in 1919 and 1920 called San Francisco’s Thoroughfares.

In early 2010, thanks to a Google Alert I set up on the terms “San Souci” and “San Francisco”, I got a ping about a newly (and badly) digitized copy of the collected Morphy columns. Luckily, one of the seven or so iterations of the phrase “San Souci” was digitized properly by the OCR software and set off the Google Alert.

In Morphy’s column, he describes a San Souci Roadhouse and Lake which was a favorite place to get away from the growing city of the bustling and lawless early days. He did not depict it as a hunting location. But given that other lakes among the dunes of San Francisco’s outside lands were documented as hunting grounds, it is likely that the lodge was used as a hunting lodge by some. Water fowl would not have been the only wildlife to stop by such a lake.

Please comment, especially if you have seen any other documentation concerning San Souci Lake (or Sans Souci Lake).

The Wiggle itself is now so popular, it’s rapidly becoming SF’s human-powered answer to the iconic U.S. Highway called Route 66. The popular Wiggle bike route, zig-zagging to avoid the hills, is also a walking route—and has been for almost 5,000 years.

When you follow the Wiggle bike route, through the Lower Haight, did you know that you’re moseying along:

• A dune field burying a rocky watercourse?
• An old Spanish trail? (Mission to Presidio)
• An ancient trail walked by Ohlone villagers?
• A remote and wild land called San Souci Valley?

This is the practical way to get from Market Street to the Panhandle and western neighborhoods, but it’s many other things, too! Come walk the Wiggle! Thrill nerdily to the natural and human history of this celebrated route!

Come see exactly where the dunes and hills were, one hundred fifty years ago, when the city boundary was extended to include this land. Locate just where the stream flowed. Discover the history of Reservoir Street, which you never noticed before. Learn why the sewers are inviting big trouble. See maps and photos of a forgotten ravine. Thank Sue for the Freeway Revolt.

While you’re at it, ask your bike politics questions of guide and researcher Joel Pomerantz, who co-founded the San Francisco Bicycle Coalition, organized the Duboce Bikeway Mural, and has published and spoken widely on the topic of waterways in the city.

Joel, in a 1994 article, was the first to popularize the ridiculous moniker ‘the Wiggle’—so he can ridicule it all he wants! It took more than a decade for the term term to enter popular parlance. Now it’s posted on official street signs!

Free tour but donations are encouraged.
I ask $15 to $50 per person on other tours, but this one is zilch-on-up.
2 hours with lots to cover so please be on time.
Meet at the Bike Mural, Duboce Avenue near Church Street.

Please check tour dates, then invite your friends & RSVP
(RSVP by phone if the tour is within a couple days: 415-505-8255).

This tour can be done as a bike ride, by request (extended to cover more ground). For more details, see Thinkwalks Bike Tours page.