Take a Ride Down Market Street in San Fransisco in 1906

[WoodenJefferson]

 

 

105 YEAR OLD FILM CLIP

 

"you are there" for a cable car ride in San Francisco "

 

This film was "lost" for many years. It was the first 35mm film ever that

has come to light. It was taken by camera mounted on the front of a cable

car as it`s travelling down the street. You feel as if your really there,

standing at the front looking down the street, amazing piece of historic

film.

 

The number of automobiles is staggering for 1906. Absolutely amazing! The

clock tower at the end of Market Street at the Embarcadero wharf is still

there.

 

This film, originally thought to be from 1905 until David Kiehn with the

Niles Essanay Silent Film Museum figured out exactly when it was shot. From

New York trade papers announcing the film showing to the wet streets from

recent heavy rainfall & shadows indicating time of year & actual weather

and conditions on historical record, even when the cars were registered. It was filmed

only four days before the Great California Earthquake of April 18th 1906

and shipped by train to NY for processing.

 

No wonder there had to be laws created to regulate motorized vehicles, it looks like

everybody had the right of way.

 

 

The Old San Fransisco Mint bluidling is located on 5th Street 1 block off Market Street

 

 

View going down Market Street

 

What kind of pocket change would these poeple been carried during this era.

 

 

Looks like this IH cent was pulled out of the Bay.

 

What's left of Market Street

 

The Granite Lady still stands.

 

Fires burning near the SF Mint

[Schatzy]

Very Cool!! (thumbs u

[ldhair]

Cool film.

[tejas1836]

After watching this, I think it would be safe to say that there must have been a lot of trolley car accidents. Cool film indeed. Neat old circulated coins to boot.

[jesbroken]

Thanks, Woody, for sharing. That was quite interesting and informative. Imagine that ride less than a week later. Wow.

Jim

[DWLange]

In the first aerial shot, Market Street is the tree-lined avenue at lower right. The mint fronts on Fifth Street at the corner of Mission Street, and the alley in back of it is named Mint Street.

 

This area of SF was pretty run down in the days of the Old SF Mint Museum (1973-94), but it has become gentrified. There are still homeless people about, but they're no longer the only people seen there in addition to coin weenies checking out the mint building.

[Dcoin]

That was very cool..thanks!

 

[johnny9434]

i remember the clip. thanks for the show again

[123cents]

Very cool film clip. Thanks for sharing it.

[TomB]

My first thought was that it was stunning to see so many cars at such an early date while there were relatively few people on horseback.

[Chris1976]

very nice video, thats a ton of steam powered cars for sure. Internal combustion engines didnt arrive until the 1930's if I remember right.

[jesbroken]

Most all of the autos in this video appear to have been internal combustion engines and not steam. I may have missed one or two.

Jim

[Bomber-Bob]

The pedestrian indifference kind of reminds me of today's cell phone crowds.

Great video. Thanks for sharing.

[Chris1976]

I was wrong, sorry, first combustion engine for automobiles was made by Karl Benz in 1879

[RockMyAmadeus]

I worked in the City for a good chunk of 2005-2006, on a Union Square project, and got to drive by the Granite Lady every morning...always gave her a nod.

 

I got to visit her in 1985 for my 13th birthday, when it was still the musuem.

 

[bsshog40]

Pretty Cool. I'm surprised I didn't see one motorcycle in a city this large even at the time with Harley being in business from 1903.

[WoodenJefferson]

Pretty Cool. I'm surprised I didn't see one motorcycle in a city this large even at the time with Harley being in business from 1903.

 

Harley-Davidson They were not much of a company yet in 1906, had this been filmed in Chicago or Milwaukee back then, you might have gotten a glimpse of one.

 

BTW- I went through High School with one of the Grandsons, Pat Harley...unfortunate for him he took a header off the road on a bike and down a hill braking his back. He was paralyzed and spent the rest of his life in a wheel chair. He passed away 3 years ago, I found out when I read it in a news paper.

[BillJones]

Wonderful post !!!

 

I too was stunned by the number of cars. Henry Ford did not make the automobile affordable until he came out with the Model T in 1909.

 

The way people dodged around the cable cars and other vehicles I'm surprised more people didn't get run over. It's obvious that traffic laws were yet to be passed or perhaps enforced.

 

[HiHoAudio]

Great old footage and a well chosen soundtrack.

 

I swear some of the cars cutting diagonally in front of the train reminded me of NYC cab drivers. They act as though they have nine lives!

[Conder101]

You have to realize that things traveled much slower back then. Probably nothing in that film is moving faster than about 15 mph. The cable car isn't traveling faster than a brisk walking speed, just slightly faster than that of the horse drawn wagons and slower than the bicycles and cars. And the cars aren't really traveling faster than the bicycles, so they are doing between 10 and 15 mph. With things moving that slowly it is fairly easy to keep out of the way and avoid collisions. (Although that car that cut inbetween the passing cable cars at 6:18 cut it awful close.) This was still an era when people were expected to simply watch and avoid others on their own. But the congestion of traffic and the different speeds vehicles traveled, plus the increasing speeds and availablity of cars meant that the traffic laws had to be created and enforced probaly not long after this point.

[DWLange]

SF cable cars travel at a constant 9mph, except when coasting or braking. That's a good measure for how fast the automobiles are moving.

[Conder101]

Sounds like I pegged it fairly accurately then.

[rrantique]

That's a cool clip Woody. Thanks for posting. (thumbs u

[James_OldeTowne]

Wow, many of those drivers were jerks, then as now! Was there road rage back then?

 

It was filmed only four days before the Great California Earthquake of April 18th 1906 and shipped by train to NY for processing.

Was it cold April 14th, 1906? Even given style at the turn of that century, it seems like everyone is rather heavily dressed.

[DWLange]

It's rarely warm in SF, no matter the time of year.

[bsshog40]

It's rarely warm in SF, no matter the time of year.

Agreed. I use to live in Calif. and we were about 1 1/2hrs from San Fran. Being right there on the coast, the breeze was always chilly. Last time I was there, me and my wife went to San Fran in July and had to buy some pullovers because it was pretty chilly.

[Keigwin]

Twain probably never said it, but it is attributed to him: "The coldest winter I ever spent was a summer in San Francisco."

 

I'm forty miles south of SF and it'll be 80 degrees today.

Lance.

[tenacious]

Thanks WoodenJefferson for posting that. Very cool. And personally I liked the music choice. Since I live in the Bay area I was motivated to search a little more about the film.

 

What also might be of interest is a split screen of the Walk Down Market St. film with a film of Market St. after the earthquake. Luckily the camera moved along at about the same speed in both films so you can see the same buildings in both films at the same time. At least the buildings that are still standing -

 

 

 

Here's a blog post explaining more about the Walk Down Market St. film -

 

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/blogs/stew/detail?entry_id=62237

 

 

And you can download the Walk Down Market St. video in various formats below. The 315.9 MB MPEG2 is most likely the best one. But being the original film, these downloads have a lot of annoying "film roll" that was taken out of the one posted by WoodenJefferson -

 

http://www.archive.org/details/TripDown1905