Hotaling Whiskey Warehouse

The fire took the great churches and left the whiskey, and the city wrote a rhyme about it.

Collection: San Francisco: More Stories · USA · Open in OpenStreetMap

How the story begins

"If, as they say, God spanked the town for being over frisky, why did He burn His churches down and spare Hotaling's whiskey?" Charles Field wrote that in answer to clergymen who called the earthquake and fire of 1906 God's retribution. The whiskey was here, behind a cast-iron front put up in 1866. Anson Hotaling himself had been dead for six years. The plaque says the building survived because the Navy ran a fire hose a mile long from Fisherman's Wharf over Telegraph Hill.

The rest is in the app. Peplos plays the full story when you reach the place. You can also listen ahead of time.

Visiting

451 Jackson Street, Jackson Square. Business premises, so see it from the sidewalk.

Sources

• NoeHill: San Francisco Landmark 12, Hotaling Building
• Read the Plaque: Hotaling Building
• Frederick Freeman, a beacon during S.F.'s darkest days (San Francisco Chronicle)
• Wikipedia: Anson Parsons Hotaling

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