John S. Hittell 
History of the City of San Francisco [PDF ebook] 
And Incidentally of the State of California

Whilst the greatest effort has been made to ensure the quality of this text, due to the historical nature of this content, in some rare cases there may be minor issues with legibility. This book was written at the request of the committee appointed to manage the celebration in San Francisco of the Centennial Anniversary of the Declaration of our National Independence, in accordance with a resolution adopted by Congress on the thirteenth of March, 1876, recommending that in every town the delivery of a historical sketch of the place from its foundation should be part of the local celebration. It was considered better that, instead of a brief sketch to be read publicly in an hour, the metropolis on the American coast of the North Pacific should have a book of several hundred pages. The city furnishes material enough for a history which could never be prepared on a more appropriate occasion than in commemoration of the National Centennial year, especially since it happens to coincide with the completion of the first century in the existence of our city. Such a double epoch demanded some special mark of recognition.<br><br>There are urgent reasons why works of this kind should be written by pioneers, and while there are still hundreds of pioneers living to furnish information from their personal reminiscences and from papers that will be lost when they die.