Quarrymen hit few obstacles to blowing up hills around S.F.

Perched on the sheer eastern face of Telegraph Hill, with a majestic view of the Bay Bridge, the Ferry Building and downtown, Calhoun Terrace is one of the most dramatic streets in San Francisco. But few who walk down the dead-end way realize that its precipitous location is the result of illegal actions carried out by a pair of consummate rogues known as the Gray brothers.

In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, George and Harry Gray were the city's most prolific - and morally challenged - quarrymen. San Francisco needed stone for ship ballast, construction, street paving, bay fill and other uses, and the Gray brothers provided it - crushing homes, destroying lots and seriously injuring people in the process.

The brothers were repeatedly hauled into court by outraged residents whose homes they had damaged or destroyed. But thanks to toothless law enforcement and a corrupt political and business climate, the Grays operated more or less with impunity for 20 years.

The brothers opened a quarry at Green and Sansome streets, on the eastern side of Telegraph Hill, in the early 1890s, and began blowing up huge chunks of the rock face - heedless of the homes that were perched nearby.

Ignored court order

In January 1894, one of their explosions caused a rockslide that crushed a duplex at 312 1/2 and 314 1/2 Vallejo St. The owner won a $3,000 judgment against the Grays, but they continued to blast away.

As David Myrick writes in "San Francisco's Telegraph Hill," "The only concession the quarrymen made was to schedule their explosions, giving parents time to grab their children and seek refuge from the flying rocks and breaking glass. Nearby homes became more endangered with each blast, and soon one kitchen floor was carried down the hill."

Injunction ignored

After a shoemaker's house at the corner of Union Street and Calhoun was blasted off its foundation, a judge issued a permanent injunction in 1895 forbidding the Gray brothers from blasting. But judges' injunctions meant nothing to the Grays.

Temporarily shifting their explosive activities to another part of town, the Grays opened a quarry near 26th and Douglass streets in Noe Valley. The sheer walls of the quarry are still there, on the west side of Douglass Playground.

In November 1899, residents of the area sued the Grays, complaining of flying rock, broken windows, cracked plaster and broken pipes that spewed raw sewage into the street. The Grays ignored their court case.

Six months later, on May 25, 1900, The Chronicle reported that about 40 area residents, "most of them ladies," appeared before the Board of Supervisors to complain that the Gray brothers were still at it. The Grays' attorney said his clients had done everything they could do, adding that "some people would not be satisfied with anything" and intimating that the residents were lying. His remarks "were greeted with sounds of extreme disapproval by the ladies."

Board did nothing

The Grays were powerful and politically connected, and despite their obvious violations, the board did nothing. One supervisor asserted that if the Douglass Street quarry were closed, "1,500 men would be thrown out of work."

In what would become a familiar response, the board members said they would "inspect the site" - which invariably meant the Grays could continue blasting away.

Meanwhile, their assault on Telegraph Hill resumed. The Grays had long openly declared their desire to level the entire hill, and despite the judge's order, they resumed their blasting.

On June 30, 1904, The Chronicle reported that a property on Calhoun Street belonging to a Mrs. Burdett had been destroyed by the Grays' blasting. With typical effrontery, the brothers blamed the damage on another quarrying company, an absurd claim backed by a supervisor who bore the apt name Rock.

Denying everything

The brothers' lawyer said his clients were not excavating but merely grading with pick and shovel. When asked about the quarrying of Mrs. Burdett's lot, the lawyer denied it and refused to "bandy words."

In refutation, Mrs. Burdett's attorney pointed out that "a short time ago ... Calhoun Street was passable by a wagon." Now, he said, it was a sheer precipice 125 feet high.

Despite the fact that the Grays' blasting had literally erased a stretch of Calhoun Street, an assistant city engineer testified that their quarrying did not threaten the houses on Calhoun. The brothers received another meaningless injunction.

In 1909, the Grays hit a new low, using the Fourth of July cannon fire in the Presidio to cover the sound of their illegal blasting on Telegraph Hill.

Eventually the Gray brothers' fortunes turned, and their firm went bankrupt. Harry Gray lived until 1937, long after his brother had paid a heavy price for the firm's misdeeds.

On Nov. 10, 1914, a desperate 36-year-old worker named Joseph Lococo approached George Gray at another quarry at 29th and Castro streets, near Billy Goat Hill, to beg for $17.50 in back wages. The Sicilian immigrant was ill and was about to be evicted from his house on Arkansas Street. He had not eaten for two days, and had a wife and two babies who were starving.

Gray laughed in his face, then told him to get out. Lococo pulled out a gun and shot Gray to death.

Lococo was acquitted by reason of temporary insanity and walked out of the courtroom a free man, cheered by 100 supporters. It was a fitting ending to the career of the two sleaziest businessmen in the history of San Francisco.

Editor's note Every Saturday, Gary Kamiya's Portals of the Past tells one of the lost stories of San Francisco - from the days when giant mammoths wandered through what is now North Beach, to the Gold Rush delirium, the dot-com madness and beyond. The city by the bay has always attracted its share of crooks, con men and grifters: Today's installment is the latest in an occasional series on San Francisco's rogues.