A guide to the lost place names and geographies of San Francisco
Spring Valley was an outlying suburb of early San Francisco that developed along the western slopes of Russian Hill in the 1840s and 1850s. Located in what would today be the Cow Hollow neighborhood, Spring Valley was comprised of two distinct settlements: Washerwoman’s Lagoon, a small spring-fed body of water known as far back as 1776 when it was encountered by Spanish colonizers, and the “Laguna Survey,” a survey of grants that were given out during the early period of American occupation. Because Spring Valley was located beyond the city’s early survey limits, it often appears in early San Francisco maps as an obliquely oriented island disconnected from the rest of the city.
The Official Map of San Francisco… (1851), one of the earliest comprehensive surveys of San Francisco, shows the several, often conflicting, survey grids that that gave shape to the modern city: the “50-Vara Survey” established the city’s street grid north of Market and east of Larkin streets; the “100-Vara Survey” established the street grid south of Market and east of Ninth streets; the “Beach and Water Lot Survey” predicted the expansion of the city into Yerba Buena Cove; and the “Laguna Survey,” the obliquely oriented, disconnected survey beyond Russian Hill done by city surveyor Jasper O’Farrell.
As a surveyor in San Francisco during 1847-1848, Jasper O’Farrell was fundamental in establishing the city’s layout and urban geography in its early American years. It was also O’Farrell who established the unique role of Market Street “as the backbone of the planned city.” Early iterations of the city’s 50- and 100-vara surveys created an error of overlapping land grants near the water’s edge at Yerba Buena Cove. O’Farrell rectified this error by simply cutting a new, wide street (Market Street) through the overlapping section at a diagonal angle, from Yerba Buena Cove in a straight line to Twin Peaks. This new Market Street divided the 50-vara survey lines on the north from the 100-vara survey lines on the south. As a result, O’Farrell created the city’s now-familiar pattern of dissimilar street grids that meet at Market Street as well as the system of curved, parallel streets south of Market (Mawn, 172).
In late 1847, O’Farrell was contracted to survey a settlement in the largely-undeveloped hinterlands beyond Russian Hill. Known as the “Alcalde grants,” this series of 26 land grants near the old “Washerwoman’s Lagoon” were given out during the very early years of American occupation. When surveying these settlements in late 1847 or early 1848, O’Farrell decided to orient his “Laguna survey” lines perpendicular to Market Street. He believed, incorrectly, that future streets west of Russian Hill would eventually intersect perpendicularly with Market Street, similar to the how the “100-vara survey” streets had been established south of Market Street (“Laguna Survey,” San Francisco Chronicle, May 8, 1889, p. 8).
Lost to the modern urban landscape, Washerwoman’s Lagoon (shown as “Lagoon” below) and the Laguna Survey appear on the the periphery of the 1852 Britton & Rey Map of San Francisco. During the Gold Rush, “washing” was the primary source of industry at the Lagoon. Most of San Francisco’s laundries were located the “Lagoon,” where a diverse labor force of “some two or three hundred people” that included Americans, Europeans, Mexicans, Chinese, and “Hindoos,” lived and worked (“The Lagoon–The Art of Washing,” Daily Alta California, April 24, 1854). This community that grew up around the Lagoon became known as Spring Valley.
According to early survey maps and newspaper accounts, Spring Valley was generally considered to be located west of Russian Hill and east of the Presidio boundary, and north of the Pacific street hills up to the water’s edge near Fort Mason Point.
Before the Pacific Street Plank Road was built through Russian Hill around 1854, Spring Valley was separated from San Francisco both by geography and infrastructure: Spring Valley was located beyond the hills known collectively today as Russian Hill. Without a reliable system of roads connecting these two parts of the city, San Franciscans traveling to Washerwoman’s Lagoon, or to the Presidio beyond, used un-planked roads through the scrub brush and wild terrain of Russian Hill. The following description from 1851 is one of the first known newspaper accounts of a journey through Russian Hill and one of the first newspaper descriptions of life at Washerwoman’s Lagoon:
ln passing over the [Russian] hill on the road, as one reaches the summit, a sight of beauty breaks upon the eye ; at the base of the hill are a number of gardens, green with their rich vegetable products, and through which a water course is running; […] and around the borders of the lake are hung articles floating in the breeze, that upon first appearance might be taken for a general collection of the flags of all nations, who had met on this beautiful little spot in a general convention. The romance is destroyed, however, when we find that instead of flags they are shirts, pillow cases, sheets and unmentionables, that are hung there to dry, from the various laundries that surround the laguna.
The same newspaper article indicates that by 1851 the settlement was already growing into a distinct village that was referred to simply as “Washerwoman’s Bay”:
An interesting scene is exhibited around the borders of [Washerwoman’s Lagoon]. Women of every clime and color are kneeling down upon the bank engaged in the pious work of washing, beneath the shade of their drying clothes. Men are pounding clothes in barrels, and hundreds are busy in the various departments of cleaning clothes. At the laguna are also a number of laundries upon a large scale […] Washerwoman’s Bay is growing to be quite a village (“Washerwoman’s Bay,” Daily Alta California, February 4, 1851).
The 1852 U.S. Coast Survey below shows the topography around Washerwoman’s Lagoon (left) and North Beach (right), separated by Russian Hill. At left is the Laguna Survey’s distinctly oblique pattern of O’Farrell’s survey; at right are the familiar streets of the “50-vara Survey.” The map also shows some of the roads and trails that connected San Francisco with the outlying settlements of Washerwoman’s Lagoon. The “Presidio Road” can be seen just south of the Lagoon extending westward off the map.
The earliest known use of the name “Spring Valley” appears in late October 1851, when the Daily Alta California reported that the Common Council created a school-house in the “Spring Valley District,” or, School District No. 4 (“Appointment,” Daily Alta California, October 23, 1851, p. 2).” The same paper noted the establishment of a “Spring Valley Chapel” in the vicinity in late October 1852.
In 1854 the city permitted the cutting of Pacific Street through Russian Hill in order to provide safe and reliable passage between San Francisco and the Presidio. Following the street grid established by north of Market by the “50-vara survey,” the extension of the Pacific Street Plank Road west of Russian Hill ensured that the future streets in the Western Addition would not align perpendicularly to Market Street, as O’Farrell had predicted.
…from the corner of Larkin and Pacific a road has been cut leading diagonally off to near the Lagoon, until it meets the Presidio road, which, dotted with houses half hidden among the trees, winds its way between fences to the squat adobe buildings far in the distance… (“The Lagoon–The Art of Washing,” Daily Alta California, April 24, 1854).”
The perpendicular intersection of Larkin and Pacific streets followed the 50-vara survey of San Francisco, while the road from Pacific “leading diagonally” to the Lagoon followed the Laguna Survey lines. This is where the clash of the grid systems began in the Western Addition. By the mid-1850s, the “village in Spring Valley” was a thriving community (“Population of San Francisco,” Daily Alta California, October 2, 1855). There were private residences, schools, churches, gardens, and farms that brought produce to market in San Francisco. The first Jewish cemetery in Alta California–the Emanuel Hart Cemetery–was established in Spring Valley around 1850 near the corner of today’s Vallejo and Gough streets. The Daily Alta contains regular announcements of “Spring Valley Chapel” as a place of worship in Washerwoman’s Lagoon throughout the early and mid-1850s. Additionally, two newspaper announcements from 1853 show that even some local businesses adopted the “Spring Valley” place name:
The 1857 U.S. Coast Survey map shows a thriving Spring Valley settlement nestled between Russian Hill (at right), the Pacific street hills (bottom), the Presidio line (left), and the water’s edge. The wide, meandering “Presidio Road” can be seen running the length of Spring Valley passing between Russian Hill and the Presidio. Travelers passing through Spring Valley on the Presidio Road would have seen Washerwoman’s Lagoon “[teeming] with men and women, engaged in active labor,” all manner of residences dotting the hillsides, market gardens, and numerous farms that had grown up in the outlying settlement.
A detail of the 1859 U.S. Coast Survey map (below) provides another view of the old Laguna Survey grid lines impeding the westward extension of streets from Russian Hill. The red arrow at bottom right shows the intersection of Larkin and Pacific streets; this intersection followed the “50-vara Survey” street grid that we are familiar with today. The nearby “diagonal” road heading northwest towards Washerwoman’s Lagoon represents the “lost” street grid of O’Farrell’s Laguna Survey. The elevation contours at right show the base of Russian Hill.
The image below shows Spring Valley and Washerwoman’s Lagoon from around the same time the 1859 U.S. Coast Survey map was produced. The image is taken from Russian Hill, looking westward. Washerwoman’s Lagoon appears at center with numerous structures and residences populating the hillsides around it. The mudflats and shoreline at right are the future Marina District and the “Presidio Road” can be seen at left heading off into the distance towards the Presidio.
The 1869 “Goddard” map below shows a survey of the Spring Valley settlement. O’Farrell’s “100 Vara Survey” appears at the center of map, just to the west of Russian Hill, where Van Ness Avenue and surrounding streets would be today. The “Goddard” map is also one of the few maps that identifies “Spring Valley,” located to the south and west of the “100 Vara Survey.” Washerwoman’s Lagoon is still portrayed on the map between O’Farrell’s survey and old Lobos Square.
On May 23, 1870, the Board of Supervisors adopted a petition to “open streets in the Laguna Survey,” to extend streets between Russian Hill and the Presidio Reservation. The proposed westward extension of Chestnut, Lombard, Greenwich, Filbert, Union, and Green streets, as well as the proposed northward extension of Gough, Franklin, Van Ness, and Polk streets, ran directly into Spring Valley, whose settlements followed O’Farrell’s old oblique survey lines. This began a process of more than 30 years to properly assess and reimburse property holders, and to conform Spring Valley’s streets–a “constant source of trouble”–with the rest of the city (“Laguna Survey,” San Francisco Call, November 11, 1893, 10:5).
The westward extension of streets like Vallejo and Broadway into Spring Valley often created oddly-shaped property lines in this part of the city. The triangular-shaped “Jewish Cemetery” property below is one example of the clashing survey lines and streets in Spring Valley. The Hart Jewish Cemetery was established in Spring Valley around 1850, before the westward extension of streets, but eventually moved to a larger cemetery near Mission Dolores (Dolores Park) during the 1860s and 1870s, resulting in this temporary property.
City leaders who wanted to extend and conform streets through Spring Valley also viewed Washerwoman’s Lagoon and its settlements as “one of the great eye-sores” of the growing city (“The Capital,” Daily Alta California, February 28, 1878). In the late 1870s, the city approved the construction of a new sewer along Lombard Street, a project designed to absorb Spring Valley into the city proper, as well as to drain and remove the “foul” water from the historical Washerwoman’s Lagoon. The city eventually erased the Washerwoman’s Lagoon “nuisance” from the landscape altogether when it used convict labor to fill in the drained lagoon around 1878 or 1879 (“The Board of Health,” Daily Alta California, January 23, 1879, 2:3; “Laguna Survey,” San Francisco Chronicle, May 8, 1889, p. 8).
“After much hard work through the Laguna survey [Van Ness] was finally declared open… (“Clear to the Bay,” San Francisco Call, June 15, 1894, 6:4).”
It wasn’t until Van Ness was finally extended all the way to the Bay in the 1890s, when the Laguna Survey “problem” was finally considered settled. Although local newspapers record real estate transactions of “Laguna Survey” properties well into the early 1900s, the Spring Valley settlement was lost to history with the conforming of its streets with the rest of the city and with the erasure of Washerwoman’s Lagoon from the city landscape.
References
“Appointment,” Daily Alta California, October 23, 1851.
“The Board of Health,” Daily Alta California, January 23, 1879.
Britton and Rey, Map of San Francisco, compiled from latest surveys… [San Francisco], 1852.
“City Items,” Daily Alta California, October 18, 1857.
“Clear to the Bay,” San Francisco Call, June 15, 1894, 6:4
Eddy, William M., Official map of San Francisco, compiled from the field notes of the official re-survey made by William M. Eddy... [Washington, D.C.], 1851. [map]
Goddard, George, City and County, San Francisco… [San Francisco], Britton & Rey, 1869. [map]
“Population of San Francisco,” Daily Alta California, October 2, 1855.
“The Lagoon–The Art of Washing,” Daily Alta California, April 24, 1854.
“The Laguna Survey Scheme,” San Francisco Chronicle, September 28, 1870.
“Laguna Survey,” San Francisco Call, November 11, 1893.
“Laguna Survey,” San Francisco Chronicle, May 8, 1889.
Mawn, Geoffrey, “Framework for Destiny: San Francisco, 1847,” California Historical Quarterly, 51: 2, 1972.
“Washerwoman’s Bay,” Daily Alta California, February 4, 1851.
United States Coast Survey, U.S. Coast Survey, City of San Francisco and Its Vicinity… Published in 1852, reproduced by Historic Urban Plans, Ithaca, New York, 1967. [map]
United States Coast Survey, U.S. Coast Survey, City of San Francisco and Its Vicinity… Washington: U.S. Coast Survey, 1859. [map]
United States Coast Survey, U.S. Coast Survey, City of San Francisco and Its Vicinity… Washington: U.S. Coast Survey, 1857; 1891. [map]
Voorsanger, Jacob. The Chronicles of Emanu-El: being an account of the rise and progress of the Congregation Emanu-El, which was founded in July, 1850, and will celebrate fiftieth anniversary December 23, 1900. San Francisco: [Press of G. Spaulding & Co.], 1900.
Watkins, Carleton E. [The Golden Gate, San Francisco: view west from Russian Hill, over Washerwoman’s Lagoon]. [between 1859 and 1862?]. From the collection of UC Berkeley, Bancroft Library.