This entire book, from descriptions of the City itself (brine-scented fog with undercurrents of beer and sewage) to the political machinations of the governor and mayor, is fascinating. But it was not to be, and the post-1906 epidemic was even more worrisome as it displayed symptoms of the Black Death, with pneumonic infections crossing all racial lines. When the quake and fire of 1906 obliterated San Francisco, the assumption was that the rats had been fried also. The rodents ran toward the rotting wooden wharves and the crowded wooden Chinatown, where the first victims of the Barbary Plague began to die. Although it was quarantined, due to the news of the Plague issues in the islands, no one thought about the rats which scampered off the ship and into the raucous boomtown. The Plague first reached San Francisco in 1900, via the sailing ship, Australia, which plied the sea trade between the Hawaiian Islands and the West Coast.
"The people and the place here are a law unto themselves." But once the Gold Rush began, the settlement became a very big deal indeed, with few laws, much corruption, and a reckless lifestyle that came from knowing the ground underneath one's feet could disappear at any moment. Before the discovery of gold in California, Yerba Buena was just a nice hilly area with a fantastic harbor, the "Golden Gate". The City of San Francisco (we always cap the "C" in City) has always had an air of naughtiness, which is why it was known as the Barbary Coast.
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